Genetically modified zebrafish and fruit flies much on mercury to make it less toxic

Australian scientists have successfully bioengineered genetically modified fruit flies and zebrafish capable of absorbing toxic mercury and releasing it back into the environment in a less harmful form.

Mercury is a natural but toxic element that is released into the Earth ’s atmosphere.

Methylmercury , a particularly poisonous form of the element, is of particular concern to humans because it gets biomagnified as it works its way through the food web.

Those concerns around possible invasive species may get amplified further when the creature being introduced has been gene edited in a lab. The researchers behind mercury munching flies and fish seemed to agree, for now at least. Though they say they took some safety precautions to ensure their organisms could not spread uncontrollable in nature, they noted the research is still early and needs more testing before anyone thinks about wide-scale deployment. Still, the findings show the potential, at least in theory, to use gene editing to help solve currently existing environment dilemmas..