Gene Drive in the News

A curated collection of articles from the popular press

Genetically modified mosquitoes will be ready by 2033 – scientists

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D. Sekayinga,  MONITOR,  2023.
The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVR[) has announced that genetically modified mosquitoes will be ready within a decade. Gene-drive mosquitoes are among the anti-malarial strategies the government under the Africa Target Malaria project has embarked on since 2016, to reduce ...

Millions of Mosquitoes Will Rain Down on Hawaii to Save an Iconic Bird

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S. Wild,  Scientific American,  2023.
Millions of mosquitoes dropped from helicopters could be the greatest hope for Hawaii’s iconic honeycreepers. At least four species of the brightly colored birds could go extinct within the year if no action is taken to save them. “We’re seriously in a race against time at ...

Unleashing a New Weapon on the Mosquito: A Mosquito

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S. Nolen and E. Lutz,  New York Times,  2023.
Five decades ago, entomologists confronting the many kinds of suffering that mosquitoes inflict on humans began to consider a new idea: What if, instead of killing the mosquitoes (a losing proposition in most places), you could disarm them? Even if you couldn’t keep them from ...

The Gamble: Can Genetically Modified Mosquitoes End Disease?

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S. Nolen,  New York Times,  2023.
The malaria situation in São Tomé and Príncipe, an African island nation with a population of 200,000, epitomizes the current challenge in the global struggle against the disease. The country is among the world’s least developed, and it has depended on foreign aid to fight ...

Could a new gene-editing technique be a major breakthrough in the battle against malaria?

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B. Cottam,  GEOGRAPHICAL,  2023.
The idea is that since female mosquitoes typically only mate once, the mass release of the sterile male mosquitoes should prevent wild females from producing future generations. Insect populations can and have already been successfully suppressed by the release of sterilised ...

Buzzing breakthrough: genetic engineering gives mosquito control an upgrade

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Sivasubbu, Sridhar Scaria, Vinod,  The Hindu,  2023.
Throughout human history, mosquitoes have constantly buzzed in the background of human existence, irritating us with their incessant bites and occasionally wreaking havoc by transmitting deadly diseases. The earliest known mosquitoes from the fossil record date back at least 70 ...

Can Gene-Drives Combat Vector-Borne Diseases?

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Anonymous,  tomorrow.bio,  2023.
Scientists, technophiles, and the medical community are abuzz with a topic that sounds like science fiction: gene-drives. Given the growing fear of vector-borne diseases, wouldn’t it be marvelous if we could meddle with genetics to drive vectors like mosquitoes to extinction? ...

How genetically modifying mosquitoes could strengthen the world’s war on malaria

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S. Oliver and J. Raman,  The Conversation,  2023.
Mosquitoes can be genetically modified through two different technologies. The first method, paratransgenesis, involves infecting mosquitoes with bacteria that prevent them from transmitting malaria. This doesn’t harm the mosquito. It is important not to eliminate or harm ...

British super mosquitoes being deployed to wipe out malaria from the planet

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J. Lawton,  Daily Star,  2023.
The Brit-made mosquitoes are all male and carry a special gene to prevent female offspring from surviving into adulthood.Only females bite and spread malaria. Released into the wild Oxitec’s genetically-modified males mate with wild females. All the female offspring then die. ...

Genetically modified Brit mosquitoes could stamp out malaria with Bill Gates’ backing

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K. Williams,  Mirror,  2023.
British super mosquitoes could be deployed worldwide to eradicate malaria. Billionaire Bill Gates is backing the British effort to send the country’s mosquitoes across the world in an effort to stamp out the deadly disease. This would work because the super mozzies, created by ...

A mosquito symbiont takes down malaria

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A. Taglialegna,  Nature Reviews Microbiology,  2023.
Malaria, a parasitic infection transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, is globally prevalent. Control strategies for malaria include insecticides and antiparasitic drugs, which target the mosquito vector or the parasite in the human host, respectively. The effectiveness of these ...

EPA Authorized Release Of 2 Billion More GMO Mosquitos

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T. Mateescu,  Health Thoroughfare,  2023.
A biotechnology company called Oxitec has produced genetically modified mosquitoes named GE mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are being released in the U.S. for a real-world experiment. Oxitec is using Aedes aegypti (A. aegypti) mosquitoes for this experiment. This species is known to ...

Baker: New tools can change mosquitoes’ DNA, but should it be done?

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K. Baker,  Fremont News Messenger,  2023.
Suppose Sauron — or perhaps Gandalf — were to offer you a magical golden ring with the power to rid the world of mosquitoes once and for all. And with their demise, to save countless human lives from the many diseases for which mosquitoes are the sole or primary vectors: ...

Modeling shows emerging mosquito control approach might be largely resistant to warming temperatures

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B. Yirka,  Phys Org,  2023.
A team of epidemiologists and engineers at the University of California, working with a colleague from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, in Australia, has found via modeling that the use of the Wolbachia approach to slowing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs) is ...

Malaria’s latest foe? Bacteria.

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M. Coulson,  Johns Hopkins,  2023.
In a new paper published in Science, Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena, PhD, professor emeritus in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and his colleagues, in collaboration with researchers at GSK Global Health Medicines R&D, show that a naturally occurring bacterium and a chemical it ...

Scientists are releasing disease-resistant mosquitoes. But heat waves could kill them.

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C. Harvey,  Politico,  2023.
A new study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that the disease-quashing bugs will likely survive for at least the next couple of decades. Their fate is less certain further into the future. The study focuses on a special insect-borne bacterium ...

A naturally occurring bacteria can stop the malaria parasite right in a mosquito’s gut

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A. Bhattacharya,  Quartz,  2023.
Scientists at a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) research facility in Spain discovered that a strain of Delftia tsuruhatensis bacterium, named Tres Cantos 1 (TC1), inhibits the malaria parasite in mosquitoes, known as Plasmodium. Researchers suspected something was going on when the ...

Microbe stops mosquitoes from harboring malaria parasite

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C. Offord,  Science,  2023.
Researchers have tried to use microbes to control mosquito-borne diseases before. The virus-fighting bacterium Wolbachia pipientis has shown particular promise against dengue fever in recent clinical trials and is already used in some areas of the world. But most methods for ...

Lab-grown special mosquitoes can be the secret weapon to fight dengue

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M. Jain,  MONGABAY,  2023.
The World Mosquito Program infects the Aedes aegypti, which carries the dengue virus, with a bacteria called Wolbachia, which reduces the transmission of dengue. Dengue infections are rapidly increasing because of factors like urbanisation and climate change. The World Health ...

Bukedi sub-region to receive new high-level malaria prevention technology

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Watchdog Uganda,  WATCHDOG,  2023.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni together with a group of scientists have agreed to start with Bukedi Sub-region as a pilot area for a new mosquito radiation sterilisation technology aimed at preventing malaria. “Let us start with the Bukedi Sub- region to pilot this method ...

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