Gene Drive Turns Mosquitoes Into Malaria Fighters (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: The war against malaria has a new ally: a controversial technology for spreading genes throughout a population of animals. Researchers report today that they have harnessed a so-called gene drive to efficiently endow mosquitoes with genes that should make them immune to the malaria parasite—and unable to spread it. On its own, gene drive won't get rid of malaria, but if successfully applied in the wild the method could help wipe out the disease, at least in some corners of the world. The approach "can bring us to zero [cases]," says Nora Besansky, a geneticist at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, who specializes in malaria-carrying mosquitoes. "The mosquitoes do their own work [and] reach places we can't afford to go or get to."

Comments

Re:Not ready

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how little we understand about the complexity of existing gene interactions and how they actually work, this whole concept seems a tad risky and unpredictable.

Tell that to the millions of people who die from malaria every year.

Yeah, I know they're mostly brown people, but still...