Self-Deleting Genes Project To Tackle Mosquito-Borne Diseases
Self-Deleting Genes Project To Tackle Mosquito-Borne Diseases
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Genomics, Modeling, Mosquitoes, Self limiting, Selfish genetic elementsD. Ozdemir, INTERESTING ENGINEERING, 2021.
Did you know that mosquitoes kill at least 725,000 persons every year? They truly are one of the world’s deadliest animals which is the reason why scientists from all around are trying to find new ways of dealing with them. Controlling mosquito populations and preventing them from transmitting disease at times through genetic engineering is one way of doing that. Now, a new Texas A&M AgriLife Research project has plans of enabling “test runs” of the proposed changes in mosquitoes that are automatically deleted from their genetic code. Researchers have used genetic engineering in the past to modify mosquitoes in a way that they pass on infertility, don’t grow wings, can’t spread malaria, or have impaired smell. However, as New Atlas reports, this sort of modification can have harmful consequences that may be impossible to reverse when released into the wild.
