Recommendations for environmental risk assessment of gene drive applications for malaria vector control

John B Connolly; John D Mumford; Debora C M Glandorf; Sarah Hartley; Owen T Lewis; Sam Weiss Evans; Geoff Turner; Camilla Beech; Naima Sykes; Mamadou B Coulibaly; Jörg Romeis; John L Teem; Willy Tonui; Brian Lovett; Aditi Mankad; Abraham Mnzava; Silke Fuchs; Talya D Hackett; Wayne G Landis; John M Marshall; Fred Aboagye-Antwi

doi:10.1186/s12936-022-04183-w

Recommendations for environmental risk assessment of gene drive applications for malaria vector control

Malar J. 2022 May 25;21(1):152. doi: 10.1186/s12936-022-04183-w.

Authors

John B Connolly¹, John D Mumford², Debora C M Glandorf³, Sarah Hartley⁴, Owen T Lewis⁵, Sam Weiss Evans⁶, Geoff Turner⁷, Camilla Beech⁸, Naima Sykes⁷, Mamadou B Coulibaly⁹, Jörg Romeis¹⁰, John L Teem¹¹, Willy Tonui¹², Brian Lovett¹³, Aditi Mankad¹⁴, Abraham Mnzava¹⁵, Silke Fuchs⁷, Talya D Hackett⁵, Wayne G Landis¹⁶, John M Marshall¹⁷, Fred Aboagye-Antwi¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Sunninghill, Ascot, UK. john.connolly12@imperial.ac.uk.
² Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Sunninghill, Ascot, UK.
³ Independent Risk Assessor, Baarn, The Netherlands.
⁴ University of Exeter Business School, Exeter, UK.
⁵ Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁶ Program On Science, Technology & Society, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Sunninghill, Ascot, UK.
⁸ Cambea Consulting Ltd, Reading, UK.
⁹ Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC), University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Bamako, Mali.
¹⁰ Research Division Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Zürich, Switzerland.
¹¹ Genetic Biocontrols LLC, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
¹² Environmental Health and Safety (EHS Consultancy) Ltd, Nairobi, Kenya.
¹³ Division of Plant and Soil Sciences, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA.
¹⁴ CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform, CSIRO Land & Water, Brisbane, Australia.
¹⁵ African Leaders Malaria Alliance, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
¹⁶ Institute of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, College of the Environment, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA.
¹⁷ Divisions of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana.

Abstract

Building on an exercise that identified potential harms from simulated investigational releases of a population suppression gene drive for malaria vector control, a series of online workshops identified nine recommendations to advance future environmental risk assessment of gene drive applications.

Keywords: Ecological risk; Engagement; Environmental risk assessment; Gene drive; Malaria; Modelling; Population suppression; Vector control.

MeSH terms

Animals
Anopheles* / genetics
Gene Drive Technology*
Malaria* / prevention & control
Mosquito Control
Mosquito Vectors / genetics
Risk Assessment