Mosquitoes that only gives birth to male off springs are the latest weapon in the global fight against malaria.
Scientists modified mosquitoes to produce sperm that only create males, pioneering a fresh approach to eradicating malaria. For the first time ever, in the lab, the method created a fully fertile mosquito strain that produced 95% male offspring.
Scientists from Imperial College London have tested the new genetic method that distorts the sex ratio of Anopheles Gambiae mosquitoes, the main transmitters of the malaria parasite, so that the female mosquitoes that bite and pass the disease to humans are no longer produced. The scientists introduced the genetically modified mosquitoes to five caged wild-type mosquito populations. In four of the five cages, this eliminated the entire population within six generations, because of the lack of females. The hope is that if this could be replicated in the wild, this would ultimately cause the malaria-carrying mosquito population to crash.
