Mosquitoes are among the favorite “toys” of biotechnologists. This means that they have become the subject of organized mutations so that… One version was the creation of mosquitoes that cannot carry parasites or viruses, thus becoming harmless; since first they would replace (????) the normal ones… Another version, which has proven to be commercially successful so far (and essentially catastrophically unsuccessful!), is that of the English company Oxitech: genetically modified males that do not fertilize the females they mate with…
A group of Japanese geneticists from the Jichi Medical University, led by Shigeto Yoshida, took it even further: they designed to convert mosquitoes into flying vaccinators! Under normal conditions, when mosquitoes bite us, they first inject a small amount of saliva at the site, which prevents blood clotting. The Japanese geneticists decided to introduce into the DNA of their mosquitoes/test subjects a gene that produces an antigen, which, through the bite, would trigger an immune response in the human body against a specific infection each time.
They naturally had to deal with various problems. For example, the amount of antigen that could be transferred through a mosquito’s saliva is insignificant, and it is nearly impossible for a single bite to cause the desired immune reaction. In laboratory experiments, mice “received” an average of 1,500 bites to produce any result… But Yoshida was not discouraged: in communities at risk of malaria, people may “receive” even 100 bites in one night, he said. (Do these people perhaps ignore mosquito nets?)
The Japanese team admits that there are still some problems that need to be solved (legislative and ethical issues they say…) before these “flying vaccinators” are released into certain populations (African perhaps???). But the community of genetic engineers has been enthusiastic. “Science is truly beautiful” declared one of them, Jesus Valenzuela of the infamous for its dirty work American NIAID.
So, will we be able to kill these mosquitoes? Or will it be considered anti-scientific action, opposition-to-progress, irrational behavior and all the rest of the beautiful accusations?