Engineered Mosquitos to do the trick

Malaria is still a severe problem in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the World. Here is a map from CDC showing the most affected regions.

Malaria_01
Here are some main malaria related facts from CDC:

• 3.4 billion people (half the world’s population) live in areas at risk of malaria transmission in 106 countries and territories
• In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 207 million clinical episodes, and 627,000 deaths. An estimated 91% of deaths in 2010 were in the African Region.

If you are travelling to countries where this may be a problem check out this table here. Pregnant women are especially susceptible.

While medication can help, it is better to prevent getting sick from Malaria. Get rid of the bothersome mosquitoes or, make them ineffective.

This is where the mosquito engineering comes in and where genetic engineering is useful.

The following are adopted to combat the mosquitoes:

• make them unable to fly
• decrease their olfactory sense
• make them infertile
• make them unable to spread disease

All are useful but not totally effective. This additional approach has been developed at University of California using a technique called CRISPR/Cas9 which could render entire mosquito populations from transmitting the parasite to humans.

Read more details here and here.

Here is a video:


Related article here.(http://www.cnet.com/news/neuroscientists-light-up-a-flys-brain-to-see-into-the-past/)