GM mosquito bred to destroy malaria

[babylonsister]

GM mosquito bred to destroy malaria
Mark Henderson, Science Editor


The fight against malaria could eventually be transformed by releasing into disease-ridden areas genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot transmit the infection.

Scientists in America have engineered a species of mosquito which is resistant to the malaria infection. Its ability to block the infection suggests that it could come to dominate mosquito populations if released into the wild.

The findings offer the strongest suggestion yet that engineering mosquitoes to resist the parasite could help to control a disease that takes up to 2.7 million lives each year, chiefly in Africa. Malaria infects between 300 million and 500 million people each year. Only HIV/ Aids causes more deaths from infectious disease.

Large numbers of GM mosquitoes would be released in areas where malaria is common, where they would interbreed with wild ones. Over several generations, resistance should spread through the mosquito population, so that fewer insects carry malaria. However, this approach would prove controversial with environmental groups, as it would involve supplanting a naturally occurring species with a genetically engineered variant.

more...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1539891.ece

[lapfog_1]

1. This seems like a really bad idea.

Do we really think we know what all of the potential outcomes of this really are?

I'm all for fighting malaria, but modifying genetics to remove a particular trait seems very risky.

[billyoc]

3. Pfft... What could happen?

[lapfog_1]

6. Something like this!!!

[Taverner]

2. Good. Yeah I know there are serious repurcussions but as one who as had Dengue...

Let me say that the sooner they can rid us of that disease, the better.

[Thirtieschild]

5. My mother had malaria as a child in South Georgia

She said it was so horrible - urinating blood was just one symptom - that the fourth time around she decided if it came back again she wouldn't try to get well. Fortunately, it didn't come back and she lived to be 100.

[RandySF]

4. This has the makings of a bad sci fi movie n/t

[Why Syzygy]

7. Doesn't that assume that the disease resistant

breed has the dominant gene? Or, has it been designed so?

I don't like it. Too many unknowns. I'll do more reading, but my suspicion is there are potential negative ramifications.

[NickB79]

8. I was under the impression that people sickened with malaria are good for mosquitos

The idea being that weak, bed-ridden people are less able to swat and bat away a hungry mosquito that comes to have a snack. If that is the case, the non-GM mosquitoes that can carry malaria would have a distinct advantage evolutionarily over GM mosquitoes in the wild and outbreed them, removing the malaria resistance genes from the gene pool.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

9. Reign of Mosquito Fire

[varkam]

10. I, for one, welcome our new mosquito overlords!