Ethics advisory committee meeting Introductions and updates 7 & 8 June 2017

Introductions New member of the ethics committee New members of the Target Malaria team

Updates on the project Global project achievement Signature of a new 4 year grant for 17.5 million USD from the Open Philanthropy Project Further developing training programmes, Increasing outreach activities, Researching potential ecological effects of releasing gene drives, Developing project operational capacities and regulatory support. Diversification of funding, Initiation of activities in Ghana – not a target country but supporting activities taking place there

Updates on the project Scientific update Great progress from the team at Imperial College on the final technologies: On-going work to address resistance issues in the female fertility gene drive technology On-going work to get a “Y-drive” technology, i.e. to get the sex- distorsion modification on the Y chromosome

Updates on the project Project updates in Africa Import in November 2016 of the first genetically modified mosquito – sterile male strain – in containment in Burkina Faso Similar application for contained use of a sterile male mosquito strain is under review in Mali Large increase of human capacity with recruitments of new engagement team members, communication officers in each country, a cross-country compliance officer and a project manager in Burkina Faso Waiting for final approval from national authorities for new insectary building in Uganda Multi-disciplinary effort to prepare for small scale releases of sterile male mosquitoes

Updates on the project Stakeholder engagement update Positive follow-up after the Convention of Biological Diversity – leveraging contacts and building a coalition VCAG (vector control advisory group) of WHO to publish its opinion on the project – expected to be positive (coming soon) Positive media coverage, increasing project exposure (to be managed) Increased interest from EU regulators on gene drive – so far quite balanced positions from countries that have been engaged Gene drive starts being mainstreamed in the malaria sector: mentions as a tool for elimination Very good coverage from the Stat News article on engagement

Updates on the project Other achievements New testing facility in Terni – Italy – Aligned with ACL2 level Will be accommodating increased capacity for large cages and future gene drive testing Open day this week with stakeholders

Stakeholder engagement best practices During last year’s ethics committee meeting, recommendation was to document and publish about engagement. Paper to be submitted in June to American Journal of Tropical Medicine about Target Malaria’s co-development approach Preparations for a white-paper workshop on engagement best practices Co-organised by FNIH and McMaster University Large audience expected from different innovative vector control projects and academic experts Expected outcome: white paper that can be used as a reference, with hopefully donors’ endorsement

Pan-African engagement Roundtable with African scientists on gene drive. Issue of capacity on the continent Issue of engagement and communication Workshops organised by NEPAD with regulators (per sub-region) First one last November with ECOWAS. Two more this month with Eastern and Southern Africa Positive response, good for awareness raising and for network building Understanding within the ECOWAS regulators of the need to look for harmonization and coordination Current outreach to WHO AFRO