Luckily, I didn't blood feed any mosquitos so you can feel free to shortcut the process of learning! Of course I also didn't do any of the research, so take my shallow dive with a grain of salt.
The problems boil down to this: Gene drives need perfect genetic editing to work across generations, but biology keeps throwing wrenches in the system. When cells repair DNA cuts, they usually pick the "quick and dirty" repair method (NHEJ) over the precise one we need (HDR) - we're talking 75% vs 25% odds. Plus, mosquitoes are wildly under-studied compared to lab favorites like fruit flies, so we keep running into surprise roadblocks with their biology. Think about bacteria developing antibiotic resistance, but more complex. To top it off, maintaining these modified populations requires constant releases of new mosquitoes, making it a resource sink rather than a one-and-done solution.
Luckily, I didn't blood feed any mosquitos so you can feel free to shortcut the process of learning! Of course I also didn't do any of the research, so take my shallow dive with a grain of salt.
The problems boil down to this: Gene drives need perfect genetic editing to work across generations, but biology keeps throwing wrenches in the system. When cells repair DNA cuts, they usually pick the "quick and dirty" repair method (NHEJ) over the precise one we need (HDR) - we're talking 75% vs 25% odds. Plus, mosquitoes are wildly under-studied compared to lab favorites like fruit flies, so we keep running into surprise roadblocks with their biology. Think about bacteria developing antibiotic resistance, but more complex. To top it off, maintaining these modified populations requires constant releases of new mosquitoes, making it a resource sink rather than a one-and-done solution.