Scientists are genetically modifying mosquitoes in the hope of stopping the spread of malaria.
The technique, which uses genes taken from the honeybee and the African clawed frog, blocks normal growth of the malaria parasite inside the mosquito.
It would mean a mosquito bite in regions of the world where the disease is endemic no longer carried a potential death sentence.
The World Health Organisation says there were almost 600,000 deaths from malaria in 2023, three quarters of them in children under five.
Dr Nikolai Windbichler, a geneticist at Imperial College London, said the GM mosquitoes could work where other attempts at malaria control have failed.
“The advantage is that nobody needs to do anything,” he said.
“For example, with a bed net you need to impregnate it with insecticide and put it up when you go to sleep. It requires people to do something to be effective.
“But this technology is purely genetic, so no one will have to actually do anything for it to be beneficial.”
Sky News was allowed into the insectary at Imperial College, where thousands of mosquitoes are being bred as part of the groundbreaking Transmission Zero project.
Step one in the process of creating the GM mosquito is injecting the insect egg with genes from other species that make proteins that are toxic to the malaria parasite.
They slow the normal development of the parasite inside the stomach of the mosquito.
When the female insect bites someone to draw blood – which she needs to make eggs – the parasite is too immature to infect them and cause disease.
In a second crucial step, researchers use another genetic technique to ensure all the offspring of the GM mosquitoes carry the same anti-malaria trait.
Dr Windbichler said the technique meant only a relatively small number of modified mosquitoes would need to be released into the wild for the whole population to effectively become malaria resistant.
“The trait is self-propagating,” he said.
“Over time it will get more and more common in the population.
“It will also spread geographically so that eventually every malaria transmitting mosquito in Africa could carry this.”
The research is being done in collaboration with scientists in Tanzania and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
There are now two vaccines against malaria, but they are expensive and only moderately effective. Drugs are also available, but the parasite is developing resistance to some of them.
The genetic technique, on the other hand, is relatively cheap. After the initial lab work, the GM mosquitoes effectively do all the work.
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Professor George Christophides, an infectious diseases specialist at Imperial College, said it’s likely to be many years before the GM mosquitoes would be released into the wild.
“We have to prove in the lab that it works, and it works in the way we want it to work,” he said.
“And then we have to prove that it is safe and that it doesn’t cause any unintentional harm, both to people and the environment.
“It has to be accepted by local communities and the regulators before we test them in the field.”
