Researchers are experimenting with mosquito genetics to see if the creature's genes can be changed or controlled in ways that destroy the malaria parasites it carries before it can pass them on to people.
Researchers are working on bioengineering a new breed of mosquito that is incapable of carrying the Malaria virus.
Researchers have sequenced the genes both for the parasite that causes malaria and for the mosquito that spreads it to humans. The double triumph gives medical science new weapons in the war on a disease that kills almost 3 million people a year.
As insecticides fail and vaccine efforts falter, scientists combating malaria have created genetically engineered mosquitoes that do not transmit the lethal disease, a feat hailed as a milestone in the effort to conquer a pestilence that infects 300 million people every year.
Scientists in Cleveland for the first time have created genetically engineered mosquitoes that have a reduced capacity to transmit malaria. But that prospect has alarmed some scientists and others who fear that such a program could trigger ecological disruption and ultimately increase, rather than decrease, the global burden of disease.
The first step has been taken towards altering mosquitoes so they cannot pass on malaria. But it is not clear whether genetically modified mosquitoes could displace natural populations, or if we should even try to make this happen.