By: David Grantd

David Grantd — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:26:29 +0000

Maybe not completely unrealistic. Female mosquitoes mate only once. If large numbers of males homozygous for the malaria-inhibiting gene were released, it might be possible to ‘push’ the frequency of that gene up in the wild population.A similar strategy has eradicated screwworms from most of North America. Those are flies whose larvae can feed on live flesh, as opposed to housefly larvae (maggots) that can only eat dead stuff. Screwworm larvae infest wounds of livestock, killing a few and sapping the strength of a lot of them. The extermination program releases sterile adult males (I think they’re called horseflies and they look like a big house fly). They grow them and sterilize them with radiation. Every female that mates with a sterile male is effectively sterilized. They’ve even managed to breed extra sexy males, that mate with more females than the wild type males.The eradication program eliminated screwworms from the United States in 1966 (Reference: http://sanjose.usembassy.gov/screwwrm.html ) and was continued southward. Currently sterile flies are being released in Costa Rica, so I assume the ‘eradication frontier’ has been pushed south past most of Central America.

By: Martin R

Martin R — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:33:29 +0000

So the idea is to, one day, replace all wild populations of Anopheles mosquitos with a transgenic strain? Doesn't sound realistic to me.

Comments on: A Step Towards Defeating Malaria

By: David Grantd

By: Martin R