Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever

Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired: "Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists say would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years."

Comments

Re:Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

That sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.

Hint: How the fuck are you supposed to breed lovebugs & mosquitoes? (Give them tiny little Jacuzzis and Play Barry White at them?)

Re:Are mosquitos important?

[DieByWire]

I have often wondered (living in the mosquito-ridden South), if mosquitoes have any benefit to the ecosystem at all. We often hear about how if you remove one creature from the ecosystem, the whole thing changes. But mosquitoes? I'm not sure they would be missed by any creature.

There are many species of mosquitos, not all (or even most IIRC) of which bite humans. There's no need - and no way - to wipe out all mosquitos. Hammering the specific species that transmit deadly diseases to humans is an ecological engineering project and moral choice that I think most humans are comfortable with, though.

The effort in the article specifically attacks one species - the Aedes aegypti mosquito.