Lee Dye of ABC News writes How Sex Could Wipe Out Malaria, which tells the story of how scientists believe they have found a way to eliminate the species of mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae, that transmits malaria which kills millions of people each year.
By genetically engineering the DNA of test mosquitoes, in the lab, scientists from Imperial College London have produced a genetic variation that causes 95% of offspring to be male. With fewer and fewer females in each successive generation the entire population of the lab experiment was wiped out in six generations
The scientists transferred a gene from slime mold that produces an enzyme that chops up DNA when it finds a specific sequence. In this case it latched on to a section of the x chromosome which determines gender during the period when the male mosquito was producing sperm. Thus nearly all the offspring were males.
"We think our innovative approach is a huge step forward," lead researcher Andrea Crisanti said in releasing the report. "For the very first time, we have been able to inhibit the production of female offspring in the laboratory and this provides a new means to eliminate the disease."
Lee Dye encourages people not to throw out your DEET yet, because there are also 3,000 other species of mosquitoes that scientists would have to breed mutants for each one to totally wipe out.
Dye notes that some "critics" may have reservations about releasing genetically modified mutants into nature that could wipe out an entire species across the planet.
And it is possible that once experiments begin in the wild, an entire species could be wiped out through genetic engineering, a threat that troubles many critics. ... On the surface, this would appear to be a slam dunk. Why would anyone object to sacrificing mosquitoes to save the lives of millions of children? ... The mosquito has been described as the deadliest animal on the entire planet, and it's safe to say that nearly all humans detest these little beasts, but wiping out an entire species is something that should require a lot of thought and discussion. ... My guess is nearly everyone would answer that in the affirmative, but this is a bridge that doesn't lead to nowhere.
Apparently, the scientists from Imperial College London think so too because they say they are still a couple of years from "field tests."
What? Shouldn't we vote on this first or something? Is there a committee in England that has to review and approve of experiments, that should they work, would wipe out an entire species? Maybe the U.N. should set up a special court, so we could have a hearing first? Or at least a Gallup poll.
The world is going to have to set up protocols for making decisions like this. It would be a dangerous precedent to set that any biologist that wants to can breed up some mutant creatures and do experiments on the whole ecosystem.
Lee Dye points out that mosquitoes have adapted to develop immunity to insecticides so how do we know they will not overcome this "sex ratio distortion system" attack?
Update: Pico notes that in this article the authors say field tests are a couple years away,and interprets this to mean only that they would be ready for field tests not that they planned to do them as I originally reported. He provides this additional link to Jonathan Webb of the BBC writes GM lab mosquitoes may aid malaria fight
"If this species were to suffer a population crash, it's hard to see how significant negative side-effects might arise," he explained. "The mosquitoes are not keystone species in their ecosystems. And this technique only affects one species, Anopheles gambiae, among more than 3,000 known species of mosquitoes."
Crisanti and Windbichler think that extinction is unlikely, even with the proposed Y chromosome-driven system, but agree that caution is warranted. "There are a lot of tests to run through," Dr Windbichler said.
"We are still a couple of years from this being applied in the field. It's very promising but there's still a long way to go."
Well, we will have to wait at least couple more years to find out.
If you suddenly notice major changes to the ecosystem, don't worry, that's probably just some biologist doing some experiments. (Snark.)
Who knows? Maybe your 15 minutes of fame will be a write up in Nature of an experiment done on you?
This is a tough one for me. I'm going to have to think about it more. I'm going to put up a poll to see what readers think. Whenever they do things like this in science fiction stories something unexpected happens.
3:39 PM PT: Malaria - Wikipedia
The disease is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions in a broad band around the equator, including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010, there were 219 million documented cases of malaria. That year, the disease killed between 660,000 and 1.2 million people,[1] many of whom were children in Africa.
3:43 PM PT: And, in the interest of "fair and balanced" reporting here's a link to Jurassic Park - Wikipedia
4:15 PM PT: Thanks to Pico who brings us a link to this more detailed article in the BBC.
Pico notes that in this article the authors say field tests are a couple years away,
Jonathan Webb of the BBC writes GM lab mosquitoes may aid malaria fight
"If this species were to suffer a population crash, it's hard to see how significant negative side-effects might arise," he explained. "The mosquitoes are not keystone species in their ecosystems. And this technique only affects one species, Anopheles gambiae, among more than 3,000 known species of mosquitoes."
Crisanti and Windbichler think that extinction is unlikely, even with the proposed Y chromosome-driven system, but agree that caution is warranted. "There are a lot of tests to run through," Dr Windbichler said.
"We are still a couple of years from this being applied in the field. It's very promising but there's still a long way to go."
He also has a direct link to the study which I will put up in a second.
A synthetic sex ratio distortion system for the control of the human malaria mosquito