Agriculture: These applications include proposals for the suppression or eradication of species designated as crop pests, livestock pests, vectors of livestock diseases and weeds. More rarely potential agricultural applications propose to modify species, for example to render weeds more susceptible to herbicides or to modify insects to reduce their capacity to spread viruses to crops.
Vector control or modification: These applications include proposals for the suppression or eradication of species designated as vectors of human diseases such as malaria, yellow fever or dengue. This group of applications also includes proposals to modify such species to reduce their capacity to act as vectors.
Conservation: This group of proposed applications includes the suppression or eradication of invasive species, potentially on a continental scale, to address their impacts on biodiversity. In rare cases there are also proposals to modify species to render them resistant to pathogens.
General research and development: This group of proposals includes the development of gene drive methodology where there is no immediate intention to target a wild species. The aims of such research include facilitating the generation of complex genetic modifications for laboratory study, or developing more sophisticated gene drive systems in one model species for the eventual use in other species.