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0:00
Welcome to HSTalks.
My name is Bruce Hay.
What I want to do today
is to introduce you
to two gene drive mechanisms.
Medea, the first gene drive
mechanism synthesized,
and the second one that we
generated more
recently called ClvR.
0:22
If we go to the first slide,
what you see here is
the pattern of air traffic
throughout the world.
This really is
meant to emphasize
the extent of globalization,
that we have plants,
animals, people,
their pathogens and symbionts
moving all over the world.
0:40
On the next slide, you
see the same phenomenon
now shown with shipping traffic.
Again, plants, animals,
their pathogens and
symbionts go everywhere.
0:53
On the next slide,
you see that a
consequence of that is
that invasive species
end up being moved
all over the world.
Invasive species is
essentially a plant, animal,
or some other organism
including microorganisms
that ends up in an
inappropriate environment
and ends up thriving
in that environment,
often times in a
way that results
in damage to the
existing environment,
and/or crops, animals,
plants or people.
1:25
What we end up with as
a result of all of this
is that we have
pests, pathogens,
invasive species, disease
vectors and weeds
ending up in inappropriate
places throughout the world.
All of this then results
in plant, animal, human
disease and crop loss,
ecosystem degradation,
and loss of beneficial and
other endangered species.
What this leads to then is
it creates a kind of sand
in the gears of the well-functioning
workings of the world.
It just gums things up,
creates a lot of waste, damage,
and in some cases
loss of species.
