Self-Deleting Genes Project To Tackle Mosquito-Borne Diseases

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.

More related to this:

Making gene drive biodegradable

Introducing transgenes into insect populations using combined gene-drive strategies: Modeling and analysis

Segregation distortion affected by transgenes in early generations of rice crop-weed hybrid progeny: Implications for assessing potential evolutionary impacts from transgene flow into wild relatives

Germline excision of transgenes in Aedes aegypti by homing endonucleases

$3.9M project on self-deleting genes takes aim at mosquito-borne diseases