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(CNN Money) – Scientists propose the stage of the radical genetic engineering evolution of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket's white-footed mice to rid the islands of Lyme disease.
The nasty bacterial infection can cause fevers, fatigue, and rashes – enough reason to want to eradicate it. But undetected, Lyme disease can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 300,000 people contract the disease each year.
People who experience idyllic summer getaways off the coast of Massachusetts are particularly eager to get rid of the scourge, because According to the local health department, 40% of Nantucket residents have been infected with the disease of Lyme.
"On the west coast, in case of natural disasters, there are earthquakes. The South has hurricanes: here in the Northeast, our natural disaster is Lyme disease, "says Kevin Esvelt, an evolutionary and environmental scientist at MIT Media Lab.
Everyone associates deer with Lyme disease. transmission begins when a teenage tick bites a white-footed mouse carrying the Lyme bacteria. Eliminate the Lyme from the mice and you have come a long way towards solving the problem.
Enter Mice Against Ticks, Esvelt's campaign to achieve this by tinkering with the genetic code of animals. "We want to inherit immunize local mice with white feet," Esvelt said. "The idea is that fewer infected ticks means fewer infected children."
Some mice develop natural immunity to Lyme disease, just as your body gains immunity when you catch a cold. But this immunity is not passed on to offspring without the help of science
. This is where Duane Wesemann, Immunologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Harvard, intervenes. Once he has isolated the genetic code of Lyme's immunity, Wesemann can alter it in the genome of many more mice. These mice will transmit immunity to their offspring. Raise a few hundred thousand of these mice, free them in the wild, wait a few generations, and, in theory, more mice with Lyme. "It is expected that these mice will be resistant to Lyme disease for decades, which will reduce the number of infected ticks, which will reduce the number of infected humans," he said. says
. Although Wesemann is working to isolate Lyme antibodies in wild-type mice, releasing lab-modified mice remains years away.
Oh, and no one has ever released a genetically modified mammal in the wild before. Doing this will require more than just time. This will require a vote. Most residents of both islands must approve the plan.
Jason Bridges, a parent who owns the Handlebar Cafe in Nantucket, is open to the idea. Ticks and the diseases they carry are an acceptable risk for the moment, he says, but "if that were to get worse, I'd say we're a little crazy."
Not everyone thinks that It should be ingested in nature. "My worst fear is that we are going to make a change that affects a whole chain of reaction in this environment," said Danika Conners, herbalist and vocal critic for Mice Against Ticks. "No matter how much they test this, we do not know how it will affect the environment in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years."
Esvelt is sympathetic to such concerns, but he opposes any argument that he plays God. "I do not see how a benevolent god would want us to let our children suffer and die of diseases we could prevent," he said.
Still, he is eager to have this conversation and consider everyone's perspective. "I strongly believe that this kind of community decision-making is the only ethical way forward," he said.
Esvelt and Wesemann plan to test their idea by releasing about 1000 genetically modified mice on an uninhabited private island. see what happens. Wesemann compared it to NASA's preparation for a mission. "They will send something in space, and then they will not be able to recover it," he said. "All preparation and modeling must take place before."
Yet, there is no way to anticipate every possible outcome. But Esvelt believes that the benefits outweigh any risk. "There is always a cost to doing nothing, and we need technology not only to make the world go round but to make it better," he said.
Although residents of both islands approve the project, to clear the federal review of the Environmental Protection Agency and possibly the Food and Drug Administration. All this to say that it could go on at least eight years before the first genetically modified mice cross the meadows.
The-CNN-Wire
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