News & Events

Gene Drives Gaining Speed

In this review published in Nature Reviews Genetics, TIGS Science Director Ethan Bier describes recent technical advances based on CRISPR that are providing a broad toolkit of gene-drive systems for the control of populations, including insect disease vectors, crop pests and non-native invasive species.

Read the review here.

New 'Split-drive' System Puts Scientists in the (Gene) Driver Seat

New research published in two papers by UC San Diego scientists describes novel achievements designed to make the implementation of gene drives safer and more controllable. The new split drive and home-and-rescue systems address concerns about the release of gene drives in wild populations.

Read the details here.

Researchers Unveil Detailed Genome of Invasive Malaria Mosquito

Scientists at UC Irvine—working with colleagues at the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS) at UC San Diego and India, and the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology in Bangalore, India—have produced a groundbreaking new reference genome for the Asian malaria vector mosquito Anopheles stephensi. The achievement will help scientists engineer advanced forms of defense against malaria transmission, including targeted CRISPR and gene drive-based strategies.

Read the full news release here.

A Gene Drive Could Wipe Out Mosquitoes. But What If We Want to Turn It Off?

News story published in Freethink: UC San Diego researchers have developed a new genetic system that would let scientists halt or neutralize gene drives, even after they are released into the wild. The implications could be huge... "One way to mitigate the perceived risks of gene drives is to develop approaches to halt their spread or to delete them if necessary," said UC San Diego Distinguished Professor Ethan Bier, the study's senior author. To halt the spread of a gene drive, researchers developed a counter-system that can inactivate the drive. Scientists can insert this genetic system into an animal that does not have a gene drive — if that individual mates with an animal that does have one, the gene drive will be inactivated. Full story: https://bit.ly/3rcujW8

UC Researchers Pioneer More Effective Method of Blocking Malaria Transmission in Mosquitoes

UC scientists have made a major advance in the use of genetic technologies to control the transmission of malaria parasites. They employed a strategy known as population modification, which uses a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system to introduce genes preventing parasite transmission in mosquitoes. Study results appear in Nature Communications.

Molecular Cell Cover Paper: Biologists Create New Genetic Systems to Neutralize Gene Drives

Addressing concerns about gene drive releases in the wild, UC San Diego scientists and their colleagues have developed two new genetic systems that halt or eliminate gene drives after release. 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. The research was published in the journal Molecular Cell.

Honors Received by TIGS Leadership and Affiliates

Suresh Subramani, TIGS Global Director, Malaria No More 10 to End Award, 2019

Ethan Bier, TIGS Science Director, Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, 2016

Omar Akbari, TIGS collaborating PI – NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2019

Kimberly Cooper, TIGS collaborating PI – NSF Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2019; Pan-American Society for Evolutional Developmental Biology (PASEDB) Early Career Award, 2019

Gagandeep Kang, TIGS Scientific Advisory Board member – elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, 2019

Valentino Gantz, Founding Faculty Graduate Research Award, 2015; UCSD Chancellor's Dissertation Metal for Biology, 2015; Excellence in Graduate Student Research Award; Jean Fort Dissertation Prize, 2015

Nimi Marcel, TIGS visiting scholar – Indo-U.S. Fellowship for Women in STEMM, 2018

Hannah Grunwald, TIGS-funded graduate student researcher – 2019 Biology Founding Faculty Award for Graduate Excellence

Chia-Yu (Katherine) Tsai, TIGS BS/MS fellowship recipient, 2018-2019 – winner of the 2019 Division of Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Showcase MS poster award

The Impact of Next Generation Sequencing on Human Health and Agricuture

A new article published in BioTecNika describes the progress we've made with Next-Generation Sequencing and how it has transformed diagnosis and treatment in human health as well as agriculture. https://bit.ly/2Zuas7z

Authors: Subha Srinivasan, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society & Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, and Suresh Subramani, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, India and UC San Diego

American Scientist Cover Article: "Gene Editing and War Against Malaria"

In the winter quarters of 2019 and 2020, The Institute for Practical Ethics (IPE) at UC San Diego hosted Elliot Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor of Philosophy, William F. Vilas Research Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Visiting Tata Chancellor’s Endowed Professor of Philosophy. The culmination of the interactions between Professor Sober, TIGS, and IPE is the jointly-written opinion piece “Gene Editing and the War against Malaria,” which was published in the American Scientist (Bier and Sober, 2020). https://www.americanscientist.org/magazine/issues/2020/may-june

New York Times Magazine Story Features TIGS Researchers --

The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We?

Ethan Bier, who has become deeply involved with the technology since his and Valentino Gantz’s breakthrough, emphasized that the many potential applications are likely to have extremely different benefits and risks. Malaria, he noted, is one of the strongest cases. Studies show that reducing or even eliminating the Anopheles mosquito is unlikely to have a significant environmental effect (few birds or animals rely on it as a food source), and as it is one of 3,500 mosquito species on the planet, its disappearance wouldn’t appreciably dent the insect’s overall diversity. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html?searchResultPosition=2

Pro-AG: New CRISPR-based Gene-Drive System in Bacteria Defeats Antibiotic Resistance

A research team at UC San Diego has developed a new CRISPR-based gene-drive system that dramatically increases the efficiency of inactivating a gene rendering bacteria antibiotic-resistant. The new system leverages technology developed by UC San Diego biologists in insects and mammals that biases genetic inheritance of preferred traits called “active genetics.”

In the News: Tatas Pad Up for Genetic Research Play

The Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS), funded by a grant from the Tata Trust, has started operations in Bengaluru, where it is building research laboratories. Conceived as a philanthropic project, a chapter of TIGS has been set up at the University of California San Diego. “We have started building the laboratory and are in the initial stages. Anything that comes out of this will be philanthropic in nature. It is for the people of India and, more importantly, the research will be done by the Indians,” said Shaibal Kumar Dasgupta, Group Leader, TIGS. -- The Hindu Business Line (Sept. 27, 2019) https://bit.ly/2mcZeop

Tata Institute for Genetics and Society and UC Honored by Malaria No More

Suresh Subramani, global director of the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, and the University of California were honored by Malaria No More on June 19, 2019, during a celebration of innovation and leadership in ending malaria. TIGS and UC were honored for “applying CRISPR-driven ‘active genetics’ to tackling all forms of mosquito-borne disease.” Details: bit.ly/2FnNdmG

Next-generation Gene Drive Arrives

New CRISPR-based gene drives and broader active genetics technologies are revolutionizing the way scientists engineer the transfer of specific traits from one generation to another. Scientists at UC San Diego, including TIGS researchers, have now developed a new version of a gene drive that opens the door to the spread of specific, favorable subtle genetic variants, also known as “alleles,” throughout a population. The new “allelic drive,” described April 9 in Nature Communications, is equipped with a guide RNA (gRNA) that directs the CRISPR system to cut undesired variants of a gene and replace it with a preferred version of the gene. The new drive extends scientists’ ability to modify populations of organisms with precision editing. Using word processing as an analogy, CRISPR-based gene drives allow scientists to edit sentences of genetic information, while the new allelic drive offers letter-by-letter editing.

TIGS Scientists First to Use CRISPR/Cas9 to Control Genetic Inheritance in Mice

A team of UC San Diego biologists and TIGS scientists including Hannah Grunwald, Valentino Gantz, Ethan Bier and Kimberly Cooper developed the world’s first CRISPR/Cas9-based approach to control genetic inheritance in a mammal. Publishing their work in the journal Nature, the researchers developed a new active genetic technology in mice. The achievement lays the groundwork for further advances based on this technology, including biomedical research on human disease. More details here and this video...

TIGS Science Director on Science and Facts -- Allen Institute video

Tata Hall for the Sciences opens at UC San Diego

Fellowship Opportunities for BS/MS Students

Working in the Area of Active Genetics

TIGS-UC San Diego would like to announce an exciting opportunity for BS/MS students at UC San Diego who wish to pursue research projects in the area of Active Genetics. A one-time $5,000 fellowship will be awarded to up to 10 students/year who apply by providing the following application materials: 1) A statement of purpose explaining interest in the field of Active Genetics; 2) A letter of recommendation from a BS/MS advisor who will serve as a mentor while the student is pursuing the Active Genetics project; 3) A description of the project proposal to be provided jointly by the student and their mentor.

Specific calls for applications will occur at the end of the spring quarter, with application materials due no later than September 1st via email to tigs@ucsd.edu for review by the TIGS Executive Committee. The applicants must be either current MS students or accepted into the MS part of the program in the fall quarter of the year of application.

Awardees will be expected to (i) attend the monthly Active Genetics meetings, (ii) present their work at the Annual Undergraduate Research Showcase and (iii) acknowledge the support of TIGS in their BS/MS thesis, public presentations and publications that arise from their work.

Gene-drives and Active Genetics: A Henry Stewart Talks Series Organized by Professor Ethan Bier

Seven lecture Henry Stewart Talks series available here (subscription required) The series features: Professor Ethan Bier (UC San Diego): Gene Drives and Their Implications for Health and Society; Dr. Anthony James (UC Irvine): Population Modification of Malaria Vector Mosquitoes; Professor Ethan Bier (UC San Diego): The Dawn of Active Genetics; Professor Craig Montell (UC Santa Barbara): Suppressing Mosquito Disease Vectors Via Manipulating Fertility, Sex and Male-Courtship Drive; Professor Gregory Lanzaro (UC Davis): Ecological Considerations for Gene Drive Systems; Professors Fred Gould and Alun Lloyd (North Carolina State University): Gene Drive Behavior When Pest Populations Have Age, Mating and Spatial Structure; Professor Stephanie James (Foundation for the National Institutes of Health): Guidance for Responsible Testing and Implementation of Gene-drive Systems; and Professor Cinnamon Bloss (UC San Diego): Public Response to a Proposed Field Trial of Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes in the United States -- A Case Study

Technology assessment for policy and management:

A case study of synthetic biology

Certificate course offered periodically by the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego

Instructor: GPS Professor of Practice Dr. Robert Friedman

This short course will focus on governance challenges posed by emerging technologies, using synthetic biology as an example. Synthetic biology is, simply, “next-generation” genetic engineering, combining advances in chemistry, biology, computer science and engineering. Microbes, plants and animals can be engineered faster, cheaper and with greater precision to make and do things not previously possible.

The short course will meet once per week for five weeks, 75 minutes per session. The first session will be an overview of the technology, the types of products and applications being considered and the societal concerns the new technology raises.

Subsequent sessions will drill down to consider either a particular category of concerns or a specific application in greater depth. Each session will explore the topic from two perspectives: 1) the societal issues and resulting governance challenges and responses and 2) technology assessment for policy and management, that is a focus on how “policy sausage” is actually made.

Session 1: Overview of synthetic biology, its potential benefits, and governance challenges

Session 2: Dual use concern

Session 3: Environmental and human health concerns:

Session 4: International governance of synthetic biology. Synthetic biology meets the United Nations.

Session 5: “Gene drives”. Rewriting genetic code can rewrite the rules of inheritance in insects.

Tata Institute for Genetics and Society Advances with Building Naming, Inaugural Chair Holders

UC San Diego celebrated the dedication of a new building with a special announcement. The cutting-edge science building will bear the name Tata Hall for the Sciences, or Tata Hall, in recognition of a $70 million gift from the Tata Trusts, which was committed last year to create the binational Tata Institute for Genetics and Society.

Active Genetics Goes Global

UC San Diego News Feature: Tata Trusts & University of California San Diego partner to establish Tata Institute for Active Genetics and Society