Scientists prove new technology to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 12:30
in Biology & Nature
Scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Washington, Seattle, have taken an important step towards developing control measures for mosquitoes that transmit malaria. In today's study, published in Nature, researchers have demonstrated how some genetic changes can be introduced into large laboratory mosquito populations over the span of a few generations by just a small number of modified mosquitoes. In the future this technological breakthrough could help to introduce a genetic change into a mosquito population and prevent it from transmitting the deadly malaria parasite, Plasmodium, to humans.