Buzzing breakthrough: genetic engineering gives mosquito control an upgrade

Throughout human history, mosquitoes have constantly buzzed in the background of human existence, irritating us with their incessant bites and occasionally wreaking havoc by transmitting deadly diseases. The earliest known mosquitoes from the fossil record date back at least 70 million years, and evidence of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria dates back to Egyptian mummies from 2000 BC. But with insecticide resistance in mosquitoes rising to alarming proportions, it has become imperative that newer approaches to mosquito control gain prominence, even despite the availability of a first-generation malaria vaccine that officials in different countries are currently implementing in a pilot in endemic regions. In a recent paper in Science Advances, researchers at Imperial College London genetically enhanced a gene expressed in the midgut of mosquitoes to secrete two antimicrobial substances called magainin 2 and melittin. A timeless struggle It is therefore not surprising that the genetic engineering of mosquitoes and trials involving genetically modified mosquitoes have faced multifaceted challenges in different parts of the world.