Scientists eradicate malaria-transmitting mosquitos using genetic engineering which make females infertile in new study which takes one step closer to wiping out the disease worldwide.
Scientists eradicate malaria-transmitting mosquitos using genetic engineering which make females infertile in new study which takes one step closer to wiping out the disease worldwide.
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population suppression, Target malariaC. Ciaccia, Daily Mail, 2021.
Malaria kills nearly 500,000 people globally every year, but scientists have now figured out a way to use CRISPR gene-editing technology to make female mosquitoes infertile, described as a ‘game-changer’ for ending the deadly disease. Researchers from Imperial College London, Genomics Genetics and Biology, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine were able to use a gene drive for the first time to not only show that blocking female reproduction worked in a lab setting, but natural-like setting as well. The researchers targeted the mosquito species Anopheles gambiae, which is responsible for the majority of malaria transmissions in sub-Saharan Africa. The gene-drives targets the gene known as ‘doublesex’ in these mosquitoes.
