New Antibody Insecticide Targets Malaria Mosquito

Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - 09:01 in Health & Medicine

Malaria is a disabling disease that targets victims of all ages, it kills one child every minute. DDT is quite effective, and insecticide-treated bed nets also, but the African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is developing resistance to insecticides such as pyrethroid. Genetic modification is the solution of the future, though there are clearly obstacles to that, in the form of developed world activists who scare those in developing nations about science. Brian Foy and Jacob Meyers from Colorado State University decided to test whether antibodies targeted at a key component of the malaria mosquito's nervous system could be fed to the insects in a blood meal to kill them. read more

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