US scientists say they have bred a genetically modified (GM) mosquito that can resist malaria infection.
\nIf the lab technique works in the field, it could offer a new way of stopping the biting insects from spreading malaria to humans, they say.
\nThe scientists put a new “resistance” gene into the mosquito’s own DNA, using a gene editing method called Crispr.
\nAnd when the GM mosquitoes mated – their offspring inherited the same resistance, PNAS journal reports.
\nIn theory, if these mosquitoes bite people, they should not be able to pass on the parasite that causes malaria.
\nAbout 3.2bn people – almost half of the world’s population – are at risk of malaria.
\nBed nets, insecticides and repellents can help stop the insects biting and drugs can be given to anyone who catches the infection, but the disease still kills around 580,000 people a year.
\nScientists have been searching for new ways to fight malaria.
\nThe University of California team believe their GM mosquito could play a pivotal role – breeding resistant offspring to replace endemic, malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
\nThey took a type of mosquito found in India – Anopheles stephensi – on which to experiment.
\nDr Anthony James and his team showed that they could give the insect new DNA code to make it a poor host for the malaria parasite.
\nThe DNA, which codes for antibodies that combat the parasite, was inherited by almost 100% of the mosquito offspring and across three generations.
\nMosquito larvae can be genetically modified to carry ‘useful’ new genes, such as resistance to the Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria
\nThe researchers say the findings offer hope that the same method could also work in other mosquito species.
\nAlthough it would not be a sole solution to the malaria problem, it would be a useful additional weapon, they say.
\nProf David Conway, UK expert from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “It’s not the finished product yet but it certainly looks promising. It does look like the genetic editing works.”
\nOther scientists have been looking at genetically modifying mosquitoes to render them infertile, so that they die out. But some experts fear that eliminating mosquitoes entirely may have unforeseen and unwanted consequences. Replacing disease-carrying mosquitoes with harmless breeds is a potential alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US scientists say they have bred a genetically modified (GM) mosquito that can resist malaria infection. If the lab technique works in the field, it could offer a new way of stopping the biting insects from spreading malaria to humans, they say. The scientists put a new “resistance” gene into the mosquito’s own DNA, using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}