Showing posts with label CRISPR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CRISPR. Show all posts

Sunday, August 22, 2021

Herbicide Resistant Weeds

 NY Times Mag has an article on "superweeds", weeds resistant to herbicides, specifically Palmer amaranth.

It's a reminder that as we change our environment, our environment changes as well. Natural selection rules.  The same process is going on with bacteria, as we get resistance to antibiotics. 

I don't know, and haven't noticed discussion, whether the use of Crispr and the sort of science which led to the fast development of covid vaccines has any implications for our fights against resistance.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Gene Drives Reversible?

NYTimes magazine has an article on gene drives, discussing the positives and negatives.  Lots of concerns about negatives, particularly outside the scientific community.

In reading it I wondered:  if I understand correctly, the gene drive consists of a genetic package which says: "if you find gene A, replace it with gene B and Crispr package X."  So a gene drive spreads a gene throughout the population while also spreading the Crispr package needed to replace A by B.

So what did I wonder?  Whether a gene drive isn't reversible, just do: "if you find gene B, replace it with gene A and Crispr package X"

Of course, it turns out any layman speculation I might have is out-of-date, witness this 2015 piece.

Monday, September 10, 2018

CRISPR and Cassava

Tamar Haspel tweeted a link to this article on using CRISPR in cassava.  Part of the key was making cassava flower reliably and early, so regular breeding and cross-matching techniques could be employed down the line.  (Cassava feeds a lot of people (is a billion a lot--I think so) but has been hard to improve because it didn't flower regularly.)

The article goes on to comment on the barriers to CRISPR being erected in other areas of the world.

CRISPR is near and dear to my heart, though it's been around for just a few years, because I identified it early as an interesting technique, though just today have I added a label for it (using "genetic modification" before).