THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Gene drive organisms: Implications for the environment and nature conservation
The Joint EPA-ENCA Interest Group on Genetically Modified Organisms (IG GMO) promotes the exchange of information and experience on environmental risk assessment and environmental monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) between the EPA Network (Network of the Heads of Environmental Protection Agencies) and the ENCA Network (European Nature Conservation Agency Heads Network). It recently published a report on ‘Gene drive organisms: Implications for the environment and nature conservation’.
The report has been endorsed by eight European environmental agencies. It focuses on:
(i) environmental implications of gene drive organisms (GDOs), which are likely to be considerable as gene drives have the potential to wipe out populations over large areas or affect whole species and ecosystems;
(ii) challenges that applications pose for environmental risk assessment, monitoring and risk management, whereby it is currently unclear whether a robust evaluation of potential risks will be feasible in the future, especially when considering the precautionary principle;
(iii) critical uncertainties associated with the approach, the consideration of which would be important to assess the technology; and
(iv) conceptual and legal challenges of GDO applications in nature conservation.
Due to the complexity of GDOs and their interaction with the environment, the report concludes that it remains unclear if and how risk assessment could result in sufficiently reliable conclusions. In addition to a science-based risk assessment, societal and ethical questions of GDO releases must be addressed, indicating the need for a more comprehensive technology assessment.
We reproduce below the Executive Summary and Conclusions of the report. It is available at:
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GENE DRIVE ORGANISMS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURE CONSERVATION
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Biotechnology is facing profound transitions due to technological advances that augment the speed, quality and depth of genetic engineering intervention. This ever continued pace of development is posing challenges to the ability of understanding the possible impacts on biodiversity, human and animal health, environment and nature conservation. One example of a rapidly evolving scientific field in this context are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with synthetic gene drives, also referred to as gene drive organisms (GDOs). Gene drive organisms are designed to spread genetically engineered traits into wild populations.
As gene drives have been proposed to control pathogens, pests and invasive species, GDOs gain much attention in the scientific literature, the administration and the public.
GDOs represent a general shift in both, the strategy on how agricultural and environmental issues are being addressed, and how GMOs will interact with the environment. In contrast to classical GMOs, GDOs are intended to spread in the environment and will be applied to modify wildlife instead of crops. Being a powerful tool, gene drives have also been suggested to be applied in nature conservation. Because of the far-reaching consequences for the environment and nature conservation, gene drives are discussed in the EPA/ENCA Interest
Group on Risk Assessment and Monitoring of GMOs.
The present document provides an overview over the technical realization of gene drives and their proposed applications, including nature conservation. The main focus of the report is on four aspects:
i) The environmental implications of GDOs
ii) The challenges that applications pose for the environmental risk assessment, monitoring and risk management
iii) Critical uncertainties associated with the approach
iv) Conceptual and legal challenges of GDO applications in nature conservation
While gene drive applications might have the potential to address environmental or human health issues, they also bear the potential for significant and irreversible environmental harm.
In order to assess gene drive applications, methods for risk assessment, environmental monitoring and risk management need to be developed and operational before any release of GDOs into the environment takes place. Due to the complexity of GDOs and its interaction with the environment, it remains unclear if and how risk assessment could result in sufficiently reliable conclusions. In parallel, societal and ethical issues need to be fully addressed when considering a GDO release.
CONCLUSIONS
Novel genetic approaches are in the phase of development to address environmental, agricultural and public health issues. Synthetic gene drives represent one of these approaches and have the power to spread genes, including genes with negative fitness effects, through a natural population or species.
Although the main focus of gene drive research is on human health (i.e. control of vector borne diseases) or the management of pests and invasive species, applications specifically designed for nature conservation are also discussed. Of all applications for nature conservation proposed so far, the use of suppression drives to eliminate invasive species on islands have the highest likelihood for realization. However, all gene drive applications are at a very early stage of research and must overcome many technical and practical problems before being available for release into the environment.
Because gene drives have the potential to wipe out populations over large areas or even affect whole species and ecosystems, their ecological implications and environmental risks are likely to be considerable. The present report highlights these risks as well as the critical uncertainties and knowledge gaps, both in the technology itself and in the data and methods available for the environmental risk assessment and monitoring. Due to the long term character of gene drive applications, the consideration of these knowledge gaps and uncertainties is of critical importance to assess the technology.
GDOs differ in many ways from classical GMOs. The potential of these novel genetic approaches to genetically modify or eradicate wild populations is as yet unprecedented. The release of GDOs has the ability for an unparalleled temporal and spatial exposure of the environment and severe implications for nature conservation goals. It is therefore crucial to scrutinize and update the environmental risk assessment and the post-release monitoring in order to be fit for purpose before first environmental releases of GDOs are performed, if gene drives are to be considered a viable option in the future. Today`s risk assessment tools are not ready and the required knowledge and data are not available to assess the highly complex risk scenarios and relationships of GDOs with its environment. Therefore gene drives pose numerous challenges to risk assessment and it is currently unclear whether a robust evaluation of potential risks will be feasible in the future, especially when considering the precautionary principle.
In principle, gene drive approaches to genetically modify or eradicate wild populations conceptually challenge nature conservation goals. In addition to a science-based risk assessment, societal and ethical questions of GDO releases must be addressed. The pervasive character of gene drives coupled with the aim to transform or eradicate wild populations and the difficulty to perform field testing indicate the need for a more comprehensive technology assessment. Such an assessment must also address ethical questions regarding nature conservation, e.g. the intention to change the genetic constitution and diversity of wildlife by means of modern biotechnology.