The Wipeout Gene - Genetically modified mosquitoes will breed and wipe-out their populations, stopping the spread of disease

From:
Scientific American
By Bijal P. Trivedi

A new breed of genetically modified mosquitoes carries a gene that cripples its own offspring. They could crush native mosquito populations and block the spread of disease. And they are already in the air—though that's been a secret

Image: Photograph by David Liittschwager

In Brief

Scientists have genetically engineered mosquitoes with a self-destruct mechanism, an advance that could slow the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
One team of scientists has been conducting tests of the mosquitoes in cages in southern Mexico. Another has been releasing mosquitoes out into the wild.
The intentional release of genetically modified insects has sparked international controversy, especially because the first releases were conducted in secret.

Outside Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico—10 miles from Guatemala. To reach the cages, we follow the main highway out of town, driving past soy, cocoa, banana and lustrous dark-green mango plantations thriving in the rich volcanic soil. Past the tiny village of Rio Florido the road degenerates into an undulating dirt tract. We bump along on waves of baked mud until we reach a security checkpoint, guard at the ready. A sign posted on the barbed wire–enclosed compound pictures a mosquito flanked by a man and woman: Estos mosquitos genéticamente modificados requieren un manejo especial, it reads. We play by the rules.

Inside, cashew trees frame a cluster of gauzy mesh cages perched on a platform. The cages hold thousands of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes—the local species, smaller and quieter than the typical buzzing specimens found in the U.S. At 7 a.m., the scene looks ethereal: rays of sunlight filter through layers of mesh creating a glowing, yellow hue. Inside the cages, however, genetically modified mosquitoes are waging a death match against the locals, an attempted genocide-by-mating that has the potential to wipe out dengue fever, one of the world’s most troublesome, aggressive diseases.

Throughout a swath of subtropical and tropical countries, four closely related dengue viruses infect about 100 million people annually, causing a spectrum of illness—from flu-like aches to internal hemorrhaging, shock and death. No vaccine or cure exists. As with other mosquito-borne diseases, the primary public health strategy is to prevent people from being bitten. To that end, authorities attempt to rid neighborhoods of standing water where the insects breed, spray with insecticides, and distribute bed nets and other low-tech mosquito blockers. They pursue containment, not conquest.

Anthony James, however, is mounting an offensive. James, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues have added genes to A. aegypti that block the development of flight muscles in females. When a genetically modified male mosquito mates with a wild female, he passes his engineered genes to the offspring. The females—the biters—don’t survive long. When they emerge from the pupal stage, they sit motionless on the water. They won’t fly, mate or spread disease. The male progeny, in contrast, will live to spread their filicidal seed. In time, the absence of female offspring should lead to a population crash, which James’s collaborator has already demonstrated in the controlled environment of an indoor laboratory in Colorado. Now he has brought his bugs south.

The technology marks the first time scientists have genetically engineered an organism to specifically wipe out a native population to block disease transmission. If the modified mosquitoes triumph, then releasing them in dengue-endemic zones worldwide could prevent tens of millions of people from suffering. Yet opponents of the plan warn of unintended consequences—even if mosquitoes are the intended victims.

Researchers also struggle with how to test their creations. No international laws or agencies exist to police trials of new transgenic organisms. For the most part, scientists and biotech companies can do what they want—even performing uncontrolled releases of test organisms in developing countries, neither warning the residents that their backyards are about to become a de facto biocolonialist field laboratory nor gaining their consent.

James has spent years attempting to play it straight. He has worked with community leaders in Tapachula, acquiring property through the traditional land-sharing program and building a secure test facility—all arduous, time-consuming, careful work. But he is not the only researcher testing modified mosquitoes outside the lab. James’s colleague Luke Alphey, founder of the U.K.-based biotechnology company Oxitec, has quietly pursued a more aggressive test strategy. In 2009 and 2010 his organization took advantage of the minimal regulations in the Caribbean’s Grand Cayman island to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild. James first learned of the experiments when Alphey described them publicly at a conference in Atlanta in 2010—14 months after the fact. Since then, Oxitec has continued the trials, releasing modified mosquitoes in Malaysia and Brazil.

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