(Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)
Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:
Transcript
Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:
Malaria kills more than one million people every year. The disease is
spread by mosquitoes.
Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena is a researcher at Johns Hopkins Malaria
Research Institute. He’s part of a team that has bred a genetically
modified mosquito. It can’t get infected by the malaria parasite.
“If we go to a region where malaria is prevalent and we are able to
substitute the local mosquito population by the modified mosquito that
cannot carry the parasite, then the net effect will be interruption of
transmission.”
Jacobs-Lorena says they’re confident the super mosquito is safe to
release into the wild.
But he says they’ll have to convince a lot of people that it’s okay to let it
out of the lab.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.