"Powerful 'Gene Drive' Can Quickly Change An Entire Species"

A new discovery in genetic engineering seems to have profound potential for good or bad consequences. Changes can be made to an organism which will propagate through an entire species.

"Biologist Ethan Bier runs a laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, where fruit flies are used to help unravel the processes that lead to some human diseases. One day recently, a graduate student in the lab called him over to take a look at the results of the latest experiment.

Bier was stunned by what he saw. 'It was one of the most astounding days in my personal scientific career,' Bier says. 'When he first showed me, I could not believe it.'

His student, Valentino Gantz, had found a way to get brown fruit flies to produce blond-looking offspring most of the time."

Rob Stein reports for NPR's Morning Edition November 5, 2015.