Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Could Help Eliminate Malaria

European scientists have created the world’s first genetically modified mosquito, a feat that could one day help rid the world of malaria, a disease that kills an estimated 2.7 million people each year. Researchers at Imperial College in London and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany report in today’s Nature that they inserted a marker gene into the species of mosquito that carries malaria. The same technology could be used to make the mosquitoes immune to the parasite that produces the disease. They might also change the mosquito’s behavior so that it feeds on animals rather than humans.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II