14 News, The Tri-State's News and Weather Leader-Glow-in-the Dark Mosquitoes Prevent Malaria Spread
Member Center:
Ivanhoe Newswire
By Heather Kohn, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Their eyes glow in the dark, and they've been genetically altered to resist malaria. Could these mosquitoes one day reduce the spread of this disease that kills up to 3 million people every year? Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore say the answer could be "yes," although Jason Rasgon, Ph.D., co-author of a new study, told Ivanhoe he believes moving this from a laboratory experiment to real life application will take another 10 to 20 years.
Rasgon and his colleagues already knew mosquitoes could be genetically altered to resist malaria. But for the first time, the genetically altered kind is proving to win in the survival of the fittest mosquito battle -- and actually outbreed and overtake natural mosquitoes not resistant to malaria.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite that needs two hosts to complete its lifecycle: female Anopheles mosquitoes and the bloodstream of a vertebrate where it invades and damages red blood cells (and can kill people -- mostly small children in sub-Saharan Africa).
In this new study, Rasgon and his colleagues studied what happened when natural mosquitoes and the altered kind (with eyes that glow in the dark to distinguish them) fed on mice infected with malaria. They discovered the genetically altered kind actually had a twofold survival advantage. They were more fertile and lived longer.
But Rasgon cautions we shouldn't jump to conclusions about wiping out malaria just yet. He says even if they were able to develop a mosquito resistant to human malaria as well as malaria in mice, that alone "is not enough to push the gene into the population." Scientists would therefore have to come up with a different way to get the gene into the mosquito population.
Rasgon adds, "Transgeneic mosquitoes are not going to be the magic bullet that cures malaria." He says they would instead need to be used in conjunction with things like drugs, insecticides, and a vaccine, if one is ever created. He concludes, "It's really just one component of an integrated control strategy. That's how I see it."
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Jason Rasgon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online March 20, 2007
|
