Scientists Develop Malaria Resistant Mosquito

A malaria resistant mosquito developed at Johns Hopkins University could block the spread of the disease to humans. Up to 2.5 million people die of malaria every year, 75 percent of them African children. The scientists genetically engineered mosquitoes that were resistant to the mouse version of the disease. The next step is to do […]

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Mosquito
A malaria resistant mosquito developed at Johns Hopkins University could block the spread of the disease to humans. Up to 2.5 million people die of malaria every year, 75 percent of them African children.

The scientists genetically engineered mosquitoes that were resistant to the mouse version of the disease. The next step is to do the same in bugs with human malaria -- and that could be a long way off.

“We're not anywhere near a field release,” (said Jason Rasgon of the department of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University). Now they need to turn their attention to working with human malaria and trying to engineer a mosquito resistant to that.

William C. Black IV, a professor of entomology at Colorado State University, noted that the work was done with Plasmodium berghei, which infects mice, rather than P. falciparum, which causes malaria in humans.

P. berghei is often used in laboratory work because it is easy to manipulate, but a lot of its properties are specific to that parasite and it is not always a good model for the human form, he said.

The study was published in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists Develop Malaria-Resistant Mosquito [AP]