GM Mosquitoes:
Manipulating a corner of the ecosystem to halt the transmission of Malaria
Name: Andrea Crisanti, PhD
Name: Marcelo Jacobs Lorena, PhD
Lab: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Malaria Research Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
Innovation: 2002- The first GM Anopheles mosquito was created.
2012- A twist on the approach: a mosquito carrying GM midgut bacteria was created.
Lab: Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, UK
Innovation: 2005- A useful technique for identifying a male GM mosquito was developed.
Lab: Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine, Davis, CA, USA
Innovation: 2010- An Anopheles GM mosquito with increased Akt signaling was created.
Lab: Department of Entomolog, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Innovation: 2010- An Anopheles GM mosquito with increased Akt signaling was created.
Name:Shirley Luckhart, PhD
Name: Michael Riehle, PhD
Biotech Innovators & Economic Impact
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested nearly $38 million into GM strategies to stop mosquitoes from transmitting diseases (1.5).
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The US National Institutes of Health has funded multiple studies
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GM mosquitoes will potentially help economic growth both here and in developing countries:
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Less illness, fewer hospitalizations of working age people
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Parents of ill children can work instead of caring for sick children
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When a child is helped, the economy of a country is helped as well, because that child will make contributions to the economy when he/she is older
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There is patent potential for bio-tech companies to take advantage of
Economic Information:
Innovations and Innovatiors:
Bio-Tech Company: Oxitec
Oxitec is currently the only bio-tech company with GM mosquitos actually in the development pipeline and already being tested in the field to help decrease transmission of dengue fever, but are not yet released as a commercial product. They use an improvement upon the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) to control the population of insects that could be harmful. Their technique is called Release of Insects carrying Dominant Lethals (RIDL). They release GM males into the enviroment that are able to mate with wild females, but the offspring carry a mutation that results in either death at the pupa stage or in flightless offspring that die rapidly, unless tetracycline is present (it is not normally present in the environment).
They do not yet have a program for Anopheles GM mosquitoes that trasmit maleria, but in company literature on the website, this is part of future plans.
The company also has other GM insects for agriculture products currently far along in development. Of note, one insect targeted is the Mediterrranean fruit fly, one of the world's most damaging agricultural pests.
Founder of Oxitec: Dr. Luke Alphey, PhD
He invented the system currently used by Oxitec, RIDL.
