These Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Malaria

Summer barbecues have a special place in my heart. The smell of charcoal-grilled burgers. Ice-cold fizzy drinks. Music, laughs—and the incessant buzzing of mosquitoes.

While mostly a nuisance at backyard parties, the blood-sucking critters carry a range of potentially life-threatening diseases, such as dengue fever, malaria, and encephalitis. Malaria alone causes roughly half a million deaths each year, mostly in developing countries.

Mosquito nets help reduce transmission. But a more permanent solution would be to block the disease from passing between mosquitoes and humans altogether. The malaria parasite replicates in the mosquito gut and infects people through the bug’s saliva. Get rid of the mosquito middleman, and we may nip malaria and other blood-borne diseases in the bud.

Gene drives are one way to do this. These engineered genetic chunks override the rules of inheritance to push a gene down an entire family line. In one example, scientists engineered mosquitoes that, when they bred with their natural counterparts, gave rise to offspring that couldn’t reproduce. In limited lab tests, the gene drives eventually wiped out the population.

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