Created in fruit flies, the e-CHACRs and ERACRs are powerful gene drive control mechanisms that were meticulously developed and tested at the genetic and molecular levels. In the past decade ...

Now, the same team that designs these gene drives has designed two self-copying (or active) guide RNA-only genetic elements that act as a mechanism of control. The work, from the University of ...

Gene drives can paste themselves into a gene inherited ... Studies of biological pest control mechanisms — such as releasing a predator to eradicate an invasive species (remember invasive ...

A "gene drive" is a generic term for anything that ... the cell's natural DNA-repair mechanism uses the undamaged chromosome as a template for repair. And hey, look! The undamaged chromosome ...

A powerful, three-way mechanism by which a mutation drives the growth of childhood brain ... were those involving a growth-driving gene, MYB, which normally is active only during the fetal phase ...

This mechanism opens the door to manipulating ... but only in pollen cells containing the gene drive. The researchers used the self-pollinating plant Arabidopsis thaliana for this study in order ...

"This mechanism is an inherent remedy to the gene's selfish drive," says Yamashita, who is also a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator of the ...

Gene drives are bits of DNA that encode various mechanisms for cheating the system and ensuring they get inherited by more than half of offspring. This means they can spread in a population even ...

Sensing damage to their DNA, cells activate internal molecular “repairmen” to stitch genes back together and adopt gene drives and their genetic cargo. Plants are different. Their cells also have a ...