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GM Mosquito Trial Alarms Opponents, Strains Ties in Gates-Funded Project

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GM Mosquito Trial Alarms Opponents, Strains Ties in Gates-Funded Project NEWS OF THE WEEK SCIENCE AND SOCIETY diffi cult situation,” he says. “I would com- pletely reject any notion that this was done GM Mosquito Trial Alarms Opponents, secretively,” says Alphey, who notes that the trial was well-known within the island’s population of 50,000, “but just not picked up Strains Ties in Gates-Funded Project internationally.” For about a decade, scientists have debated Few deny that in the race to develop how and when to carry out the first test “I would com- disease-fi ghting mosquitoes, Oxitec has an release of transgenic mosquitoes designed impressive lead. Its key idea, pioneered by to fi ght human disease—a landmark study pletely reject Alphey while at the University of Oxford they imagined might trigger fi erce resistance any notion that in the 1990s, is to release massive numbers from opponents of genetic engineering. A this was done of lab-bred male mosquitoes equipped with stream of papers and reports has argued that a gene that kills any offspring in the larval a release of any genetically modifi ed (GM) secretively.” or pupal stage. When the males mate with mosquito should be preceded by years of —LUKE ALPHEY, females of a natural population, there are no careful groundwork, including an exhaus- CHIEF SCIENTIFIC progeny—and if the transgenic males mate tive public debate to win the hearts and OFFICER, OXITEC more often than the natural ones, the mos- minds of the local population. quito population will dwindle or even col- But now, it turns out that with little pub- says Bart Knols, a medical entomologist at lapse. (And because male mosquitoes don’t lic debate, a company released such mos- the University of Amsterdam in the Nether- bite, their release does not increase the risk quitoes a year ago in a fi scal paradise in lands. “This could well trigger a backlash.” of disease transmission to humans.) the Caribbean, where they have been fl y- Nor does the trial sit well with the col- Oxitec sees a key market in Ae. aegypti, ing under the world’s radar screen until laborators in a big international project, in the vector for dengue, a painful and some- last week. At a press conference in London which Oxitec is a key member, to develop times fatal viral infection for which no on 11 November, British company Oxitec and test GM mosquitoes. The program, drugs or vaccines exist. Many middle- and on January 11, 2011 announced that it carried out the world’s fi rst funded by a $19.7 million grant from the high-income countries already invest heav- small trial with transgenic Aedes aegypti Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led ily in traditional mosquito-control meas- mosquitoes in Grand Cayman in the fall of by Anthony James of the University of Cali- ures to fight dengue, but the results are 2009, followed by a larger study there last fornia, Irvine, has spent years preparing a unimpressive—so an alternative is wel- summer. Oxitec chief scientist Luke Alphey study site in the Mexican state of Chiapas, come. Alphey says the fi rst small fi eld study, also presented the unpublished results— where it is testing another strain of Oxitec designed to test whether the males can com- which he declared a “complete success”— mosquitoes in cage studies. The project, pete with their natural counterparts, was at a meeting of the American Society of one of Gates’s Grand Challenges in Global done on Grand Cayman in November and Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta Health, would “never” release GM mosqui- December of 2009. It was followed by a www.sciencemag.org a week earlier. toes the way Oxitec has now done in Grand larger study, between May and October The announcement has taken aback Cayman, says James. of this year, in which the insects’ popula- opponents of GM mosquitoes and surprised Oxitec has received $5 million from tion-suppressing powers were also gauged. many researchers in the fi eld of genetic con- the Gates program, but the Grand Cayman During that period, the team fl ooded about trol of insect vectors. And some say that trial is not part of that. “As a private com- 16 hectares in the town of East End with staying mum was a strategic mistake that pany, they can push their own agenda,” says transgenic males, about 10 for every natu- provides critics with fresh ammunition. “I James, even though this could possibly hurt rally occurring wild male. By August, there Downloaded from don’t think they did themselves a favor,” the field as a whole. “It’s a were about 80% fewer mosquitoes around than in a comparable control area. For the trial, Oxitec has worked with the Mosquito Research and Control Grand Cayman Unit (MRCU) of the Cayman Islands, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Battleground. A town close East End The trial abided by the rules of the territory’s to the eastern tip of Grand Cayman new biosafety bill that has yet to become was home to the world’s fi rst known law, Alphey says. There were no town hall release of transgenic Aedes aegypti meetings or public debates because the gov- mosquitoes. Bahamas ernment of the Cayman Islands didn’t deem them necessary. But MRCU sent informa- Gulf of Mexico Cuba Turks and Caicos tion about the study to local newspapers, Alphey says, and its 50 employees attended Cayman Islands a lunch meeting about the project from Haiti Dominican which information fi ltered out to the rest Jamaica Republic Mexico of the island as well. MRCU, which could not be reached for comment, also posted a promotional video about the project on YouTube, but the clip does not mention ARS/USDA; GOOGLE MAPS (BOTTOM, PHOTO) LTD.; CREDITS: (TOP) HADYN PARRY/OXITEC 1030 19 NOVEMBER 2010 VOL 330 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWS OF THE WEEK ScienceNOW Enjoy your fl ight. The From Science’s release of transgenic males led to an 80% Online Daily News Site reduction in the size of the local population, Can Google Predict says Alphey. the Stock Market? Whoever fi gures out how to predict the stock market will get rich quick. Unfortu- nately, the market’s ups and downs ulti- mately depend on the choices of a mas- sive number of people—and you don’t know what they’re thinking about before they decide to buy or sell a stock. Then again, maybe Google knows. A team of scientists writing in Philosophical Trans- actions of the Royal Society A has shown a strong correlation between queries that the mosquitoes are transgenic. submitted to the Internet search giant and That’s quite a contrast to the process the weekly fl uctuations in stock trading. the Grand Challenges project researchers http://scim.ag/Google-stocks used to select and prepare a site for a pos- sible future release of Oxitec mosquitoes in medical entomologist Willem Takken of Physicists Create Black Hole Mexico. Currently, the mosquitoes are still Wageningen University in the Netherlands. ‘Light’ in Lab being tested in cages, but even for that step The company’s technology is just a mod- Thirty-six years ago, Stephen Hawking, on January 11, 2011 the researchers spent years diligently con- ern version of the so-called sterile insect the famed British theoretical physicist, sulting with local citizen groups, academ- technique (SIT), he says, in which massive predicted that black holes—from which ics, regulators, and farmers. “We think that numbers of male insects are sterilized by no light should escape—could, para- is the most ethical way to introduce a new bombarding them with radiation and then doxically, emit light. No one has ever technology like this,” says James Lavery, released. Half a century old, SIT has been observed this “Hawking radiation,” but a bioethicist at St. Michael’s Hospital in used safely and with great success against a now, physicists report in Physical Review Toronto, Canada, who works as a consultant range of agricultural pests (Science, 20 July Letters that they’ve created something for the project. 2007, p. 312). very much like it in the lab. The World Health Organization (WHO) Stickier issues arise with different strat- http://scim.ag/hawking-light www.sciencemag.org is still drafting guidelines for the release of egies that don’t try to reduce natural popu- transgenic mosquitoes, a process that will lations to zero but replace them with new Whales Get Sunburns, Too take at least three more months, says Yeya ones unable to transmit disease, says John In these ozone-depleted times, most Touré, manager of innovative vector control Marshall of Imperial College London. To of us reach for a T-shirt or a bottle of interventions at WHO. Touré says he knew achieve that, researchers try to fi nd genes sunscreen to protect us from the sun’s of the trial in Grand Cayman, and that he is that make insects resistant to infection and ultraviolet radiation. Whales don’t have not aware of any wrongdoing by Oxitec. make these genes spread through the entire those luxuries—and they’re paying the Downloaded from But environmental groups, taken by population. That approach, which so far has price. In Proceedings of the Royal Society surprise, are lamenting what they see as a proved elusive, is fraught with ethical and B, researchers report numerous cases of lack of openness. “If these mosquitoes are regulatory problems because its explicit sunburned and blistered skin on whales completely safe, then why the hush-hush?” goal is to spread genes far and wide.
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