Genetically modified mosquitoes

LONDON - Scientists have found a way of genetically modifying mosquitoes to produce sperm that only creates males, offering a potential fresh approach to fighting and eventually eradicating malaria.

Researchers from Imperial College London tested a 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.

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, the team reported that in the first laboratory tests, the technique created a fully fertile mosquito strain that produced 95 percent male offspring.

Right - so this can help fight off malaria, great. But if they can do this to mosquitoes, what's to stop them doing it to other species, humans even?


http://news.yahoo.com/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-offer-hope-malaria-fight-150341425.html;_ylt=A0LEV11NIphT8U0AWJNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0cTA1N3VzBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDM4NF8x

we could already do it o humans    forcing gender is one of the easiest genetic manipulations.

But what happens to mozzies? do they become extinct? because considering they are right down the bottom of the food chain that could have massive unforeseen consequences   

So what happens to all The other animals that eat mosquitos when they start disappearing?

Exactly TM
short sighted to say the least

veya_victaous wrote:Exactly TM
short sighted to say the least

that was my first thought when i saw the story on the news

wiki
Dragonfly and damselfly nymphs and various other aquatic insect predators eat mosquitoes at all stages of development and dense populations can be useful in reducing mosquito problems.[65] Various small fishes, such as species of Galaxias and members of the Poeciliidae, such as Gambusia (so-called mosquitofish), guppies (Poecilia), and Banded killifish (Fundulus diaphanus), eat mosquito larvae and sometimes may be worth introducing into ponds to assist in control.[66] Many other types of fish are also known to consume mosquito larvae, including bass, bluegills, piranhas, Arctic char, salmon, trout, catfish, fathead minnows, goldfish, and killifish.


house of cards that they seem to be pulling out the bottom one

I don't know much about the food chain of mosquitos except that they like to nibble on us and other warm blooded animals....
But aren't they a primary food for fish freshwater...???

You just answered my question...

Tommy Monk wrote:You just answered my question...

Glad i could help .......

So this is clearly a bad idea isn't it?

Tommy Monk wrote:So this is clearly a bad idea isn't it?

Yes   

in more ways than one ......

The whole thing is bullshit, we have people who are adapted to surviving malaria -- they're called "black people." It does come with a cost, but doesn't everything: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm and http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sca/atrisk.html

The fight to eliminate malaria via the mosquito vector is just a way to adapt to global warming instead of fighting it:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/273736.php

By the way, bats already have it bad enough:

http://news.discovery.com/animals/bat-white-nose-disease-extinct.htm

veya_victaous wrote:we could already do it o humans    forcing gender is one of the easiest genetic manipulations.

But what happens to mozzies? do they become extinct? because considering they are right down the bottom of the food chain that could have massive unforeseen consequences   

 
  IT IS also possible to put a "lethal gene" into such modified populations ~ so that the "infected" population dies out after a few years...

THERE is nothing exactly new in this particular use of recombinant DNA "engineering" ~ it has been used previously with certain types of moths, fruit-infesting wasps, cockroaches.  Indeed, it was one of the earliest commercialised uses for Recombinant DNA technologies back in the 1970s and 1980's..

AS FOR the notion of mosquitoes ~ a sub group of the Flies genera within the Insects Order ~ eventually becoming extinct : there are a couple hundred spp. of mosquitoes across the world. As long as the scientists only target the Anopheles mosquitoes that carry the Malaria parasite.

I'M all for this attack on Malaria, as long as the proper precautions are also engineered into their target species at the same time as zapping the female-allele gene ~ as with millions of deaths a year, Malaria remains the #1 preventable and treatable parasite-caused disease in the world today..