Mutagenic chain reaction could knock malaria out of mosquitoes for good

(credit: Wellcome Images/Flickr)

The best way to get rid of an infectious, mosquito-spread disease like malaria may be to beat it at its own game.

Using an infectious DNA construct—that spreads through mosquito chromosomes and progeny alike—researchers have created a population of biting insects that appears almost completely resistant to the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could signal that researchers are close to using the powerful and controversial genetic tool in wild populations where it could help wipe out malaria once and for all.

“We don’t think that this technology alone is going to be responsible for eradicating malaria,” Anthony James, a vector biologist at the University of California, Irvine, told Ars. “This is going to be a combined effort.” But, he said, his group is hopeful that people who live in malaria-riddled countries will want to give these engineered mosquitoes a try.

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