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| | Call them warrior mosquitoes. Scientists have announced the creation of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes, which they believe will lead the war on malaria across the world in the next five years. The GM mosquitoes, created at the Malaria Research Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, US, contain a gene which makes it impossible for them to pass on the plasmodium parasite that causes malaria. The strategy is to release tens of thousands of these mosquitoes in the wild where they will breed, and in time outnumber, the malaria-carrying insects. But before that the scientists will need to prove that the GM mosquitoes do not trigger a more aggressive form of malaria. The scientists locked 1,200 GM mosquitoes in a cage with the same number of wild mosquitoes and malaria infected mice. Over time, the GM mosquitoes became the majority, proving that they can survive in the wild. Health experts in India, where malaria kills 15,000 people a year according to the World Health Organisation, reacted cautiously. “It still needs large trials to show that the resistance genes given to the GM mosquitoes do not trigger a more aggressive form of malaria,” said Dr Ranjit Roy Choudhury, director of the National Institute of Immunology. But others working in the field were more hopeful. Andrea Crisanti, who leads a team working on GM mosquitoes at Imperial College, London, told The Guardian: “This has tremendous potential. In future generations, all mosquitoes will grow resistant to the disease. It should be much cheaper than the controls used now... You won’t need insecticides any more.” Email author: sanchitasharma@hindustantimes.com |
