"Genetic Engineering and Society: The case of transgenic pests" - new PhD training opportunity at NCSU

North Carolina State University is now accepting applications for its new IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) PhD program titled "Genetic Engineering and Society: The case of transgenic pests". 

The first cohort of students who will start in July 2012 will focus on mosquitoes that vector malaria and dengue. 

Detailed information can be found at the program website here or by accessing this brochure: IGERT.pdf

The Background: Last year the world saw the first open field release of a genetically engineered mosquito in association with a project aimed at suppressing dengue fever. How will societies and environments react to this new technology? And, what implications will these reactions have for ongoing research and application? The history of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) offers ambiguous answers to these questions. Insulin, produced by genetically engineered microbes, appears to have been universally embraced. Other products, such as transgenic crops, have been controversial enough to garner political protest and change the tenor of relations within and between their associated commercial and academic scientific communities.

The Opportunity: The advent of Genetic Pest Management (GPM) offers an opportunity to learn from past experiences and train a generation of students before wide-scale application creates consequences for which GPM researchers, and the communities these hope to aid, are poorly prepared. The pest species linked to such engineering range from insects to rodents and from pests of large-scale agriculture to invasive pests of endangered species. Students interested in GPM and, more broadly, in the social and ecological consequences of new technologies, must be able to evaluate whether, when, and how GPM technologies might be utilized. Students must have a combined depth of training in the technological manipulation of pest genomes, the ecology of pests and their habitats, and how people in diverse socio-cultural contexts attend to the risks associated with new technologies. Because research on transgenic pests is at the prototypical stage, new trainees will be at the forefront of these interdisciplinary evaluations.