Context

CRISPR-based genetic engineering researchers have created a “precision-guided sterile insect technique” (pgSIT), a system that restrains populations of mosquitoes that infect millions each year with debilitating diseases.

What is Precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT)?

• It is a new scalable genetic control system that uses a CRISPR-based approach to engineer deployable mosquitoes that can suppress populations. 
  • Males don't transmit diseases so the idea is to release more and more sterile males.
• The precision-guided sterile insect technique alters genes linked to male fertility and female flight in Aedes aegypti.
  • Aedes aegypti is the species responsible for spreading diseases including dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika.
• The envisioned pgSIT system could be implemented by deploying eggs of sterile males and flightless females at target locations where mosquito-borne disease spread is occurring.
• The system is self-limiting and is not predicted to persist or spread in the environment.
• Once the pgSIT eggs are released in the wild, sterile pgSIT males will emerge and eventually mate with females, driving down the wild population as needed.