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Fig. 3 | Malaria Journal

Fig. 3

From: Systematic identification of plausible pathways to potential harm via problem formulation for investigational releases of a population suppression gene drive to control the human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae in West Africa

Fig. 3

Pathway 1 Biodiversity: Potential toxicological effects of dsxFCRISPRh transgenics on NTOs could reduce ecosystem services Where there would be effective population suppression, there would be reduced densities of An. gambiae and therefore less exposure of NTOs to any potential toxicological effects. In the analysis plan, bioinformatic and literature evidence of any toxicity of DsRed and Cas9 will likely be more targeted towards outcomes in humans but nonetheless could contribute to weight of evidence corroborating or falsifying the associated risk hypothesis. Defining the experimental conditions and choices of indicator species for toxicological studies will most likely involve discussion with national regulators, with reference to international regulatory guidance and best practice [26, 95]. For all potential harms, a tiered approach can be applied to the analysis plans in both the testing of measurement endpoints and sourcing of other potential evidence in order to ensure that identified studies are only conducted when they contribute directly to reductions in uncertainty in the ERA, thus preventing unnecessary and uninformative investigations [47, 80]. This plausible pathway to potential harm could also be relevant to water quality, human health and animal health protection goals, for example by increases in the densities of other pest or vector species if the predator were to feed on both An. gambiae and those other species

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