As the Screwworm Returns to Texas, Colossal Biosciences Proposes Gene-Drive Technology to End the Fight

With the New World screwworm back on the U.S. mainland for the first time in decades, Colossal's genetic biocontrol approach aims to collapse the population entirely rather than sustain a sixty-year holding action.

The screwworm turned up in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas, its first detection on the U.S. mainland in decades. The detection prompted Colossal Biosciences to propose a replacement for the sterile insect technique that has managed the screwworm for sixty years: a gene drive, a single edit to the parasitic fly’s genome that passes to virtually every offspring rather than half, engineered to produce infertile females and propagate through the population until none remain.

Colossal calls the approach “genetic biocontrol.” Gene drives have not yet been cleared for open release in the United States, and regulatory and ecological questions remain. The company says gene-drive flies could clear an infested zone in months, against a method it describes as taking decades and never finishing.

This story is based on original reporting by Logan Simmons for Entrepreneur. Read the full feature on Entrepreneur → https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/a-dallas-biotech-says-it-can-wipe-out-the-flesh-eating-screwworm-in-the-u-s