Understanding gene drive governance

I work with an interdisciplinary network of researchers from Europe, Africa, North America and Australasia who are committed to understanding gene drive governance.

Gene drive governance focuses on the decisions that shape how gene drive technology is funded, developed, regulated, and possibly, tested and deployed. When we study gene drive governance, we are trying to understand how decisions are made, who makes them, which values they reflect, who is impacted by them and how. We want to understand who is championing or opposing gene drive and why, as well as the broader set of issues that this emerging technology might raise.

Questions of power and politics are woven throughout gene drive governance. For example, to make decisions about gene drive technologies, we need to develop a language to discuss them. But who decides which words should be used, and how do these words coerce us into thinking about gene drive in a particular way? If there are risks, how do we discover them? And who decides which risks and benefits are valid and which are not? Our projects on gene drive governance explore these questions and try to provide answers.

Should we create Gene Drive squirrels? A short film by Sarah Hartley and Tom Law.

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