Nikolai Windbichler

The paper outlines a target product profile for a rapid diagnostic test to detect gene drive mosquitoes in the field, focusing on usability, sensitivity, and compatibility with pooled testing.

The paper identifies the Y-linked gene draupnir in Anopheles gambiae, showing it escapes transcriptional silencing during spermatogenesis and is necessary for Y-chromosome-based sex-ratio distortion.

Across nearly one million progeny from 10 species, species best predicts homing drive inheritance, while promoter, parent sex and maternal deposition each explain little of the inheritance variation.

This study develops and characterizes a nanosd integral gene drive in Anopheles gambiae, achieving high gene drive rates and showing potential for malaria vector control.

The paper presents chromosome-level genome assemblies for five Tephritid species using long-read sequencing, short-read polishing, and Hi-C scaffolding.

The paper identifies and characterizes new shufflon invertase genes and their sites, improving recombination rates for synthetic biology applications.

This study investigates X-poisoning gene drives in mosquitoes, finding that sex distortion is mainly due to loss of X-bearing sperm rather than postzygotic lethality.

This study overexpresses REL2 in Anopheles gambiae midgut and finds it causes transcriptional changes but does not induce a strong immune response against Plasmodium falciparum.

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using CRISPR-Cas9 gene drives in the medfly to achieve sex conversion and female sterility, offering a strategy for pest population suppression.

The paper develops a gene drive effector that retards Plasmodium development in transgenic Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes via midgut antimicrobial peptides, predicted to eliminate malaria across transmission scenarios.

This study models the effectiveness of population replacement gene drive mosquitoes in eliminating malaria under different transmission settings and finds that combining them with traditional controls can achieve local elimination in low to moderate transmission areas.

The paper engineers sex distortion in Ceratitis capitata using CRISPR/Cas9 and Cas12a to bias sex ratios towards males.

This paper converts endogenous mosquito genes into non-autonomous gene drives for malaria control by using native regulatory sequences to express antimalarial molecules and guide-RNAs.

This paper develops an agent-based model to study insecticide resistance and gene drive impacts on malaria transmission in Anopheline populations.

The paper establishes Drosophila models to study two CRISPR/Cas9 sex distortion mechanisms, X-shredding and X-meddling, and their functional differences.

The paper identifies a Y-linked gene, MoY, essential for male sex determination in medflies and shows its conservation across multiple fruit fly species, enabling potential genetic control strategies.

This study evaluates synthetic reproductive barriers in Drosophila using CRISPR and CRISPRa, finding that synthetic lethality is achievable but with trade-offs in genetic isolation and fly fitness.

This paper evaluates Integral Gene Drive (IGD) as a more durable and flexible alternative to classical gene drives for population replacement, showing reduced resistance and prolonged transmission blockage.

Redkmer identifies X-chromosome specific sequences from raw WGS data to guide CRISPR-based sex ratio distortion in insects.

The paper investigates the evolutionary dynamics of sex-biased genes in four Anopheles mosquito species, finding female-biased genes evolve faster than male-biased ones due to sex-specific challenges.

The paper demonstrates that Y chromosomes from two malaria vector species in the Anopheles gambiae complex function interchangeably, suggesting no hybrid incompatibility loci on the Y and enabling potential cross-species sex-distorting Y drive interventions.