Skip to main content

GM Mosquitoes! #1

You are troubled at the mid-night? Your days are affected due to the lack of sound sleep? I can understand; The "mosquitoes", they are responsible for all this. We can bear with them if they are just biting and sucking a drop of blood, but, never, when they are injecting us with something like a "doctor", that too, which is never going to cure the disease like doctor's injection, but, going to give us disease.

Mosquito bats, liquids :( even with the help of these things, we are getting malaria, dengue, chikungunya :( :(

Scientists had found a solution for this greatest problem of our night!(nowadays daytime too)

GM mosquitoes, these genetically modified species are resistant to diseases like malaria. 

MALARIA!
How malaria generally spreads!
As we all know, its because of mosquitoes, especially the female Anopheles mosquito which gets the virus when it sucks blood from an infected animal/human.

Half of the life cycle of the Plasmodium species (the malaria causing protist) happens in the  mosquitoes. So, to prevent the spread of Malaria (or any other mosquito spread disease) we must prevent the mosquito from getting affected by the disease.

HOW Genetic Modification done?
First, the mosquito should not get affected by the malarial protist i.e. it must be resistant against the plasmodium. When this is possible,  mosquitoes are not affected by plasmodium, thus humans are also not affected.

In the case of malaria: The gene responsible for fighting against malaria must be triggered. The gene is responsible for the production of a protein (they say SM1 peptide). This protein when produced, fights against malaria, i.e, the mosquito will become resistant to Malaria!

Drawbacks:
  • These GM Mosquitoes are weak, thus, reducing their chance of survival.
In the begining of the experiments conducted in the lab, there was 50/50 chances for GM and wild.
After 9 egg laying cycles they found this incresed to 70/30 for GM and wild.

You may wonder, here, GM has good surviving rate! yes, This is in the presence of malarial infection, but, when there is no malarial infection at all (i.e. the mosquitoes suck blood from healthy individuals only), the GM mosquitoes fail to outsurvive the wild type.

  • You know, these microbes are smart! 
There is every possiblity for resistance development. These Plasmodium's could modify themselves to infect the mosquitoes, thus, leading to the evolution of a new plasmodium speices which would be more powerful than the previously existing types. And, we can't control these new protists with existing medicines or treatments.

We can look about control of Dengue using GM mosquitoes in the next post very soon.

Read more about this @ 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sea Butterfly!

Neih hou!  Don't roll you eyes wondering what it is! "Neih hou" is how you say "hello" in Cantonese. Guess what, I am in Hong Kong and therefore the language Cantonese. I came to Hong Kong this summer as an intern before officially joining as a PhD Student. This is my second experience abroad, far away from home, new language, new culture, I expected me to have a "really" bad cultural shock, but, actually I experienced only 50% of what I expected. For a girl who have used the marina beach only for eating "sundal", bikini in beach was a shock (FEEL FREE TO JUDGE ME!). The first time, I went to the big wave beach here, I was the only one who was totally covered, when everyone was enjoying their Beer, I was slowly sipping my lemon juice (THE ODD ONE OUT!). I realized how beautifully different the world outside is! There is no single standard for right or wrong, it varies in different countries, in different regions around the world. And it ...
11 comments
Read more

The Butterfly flew for the first time!

Hi dear sweet lovely reader, Didn't meet you for a long time... Just after complaining about the stipend problem in the last post, I actually wanted to write a lot here, but, couldn't find time (Such a lazy girl, I am!). As you might be knowing, the author (me) is the butterfly here :P And, I flew for the first time!! YEAH! I FLEW! I flew like a butterfly! It was an awesome experience flying for the very first time! (ow, no! I dint put a trans-gene in my body and fly after getting  a pair of wings, but with a passport and VISA). I'm this girl, full of dreams wishing to do "this", "that" and "all kind of stuffs that one can do". And, one among those dreams was to fly one day! TO FLY FREE!(I mean, not free of cost :P, but liberation) I always wanted to fly in those big, big airplanes, but, I always have avoided that mode of transport. Reason? Obviously, it would burn a big hole in my dad's pocket (actually he can afford if I wan...
10 comments
Read more

Plant Tissue culture - Basics

Hi, I know a bit about Plant tissue culture and I would like to share it here. Plant Tissue culture Rack Plant Tissue culture, to be simple, it is growing plants in laboratory (invitro). To be more simple, you grow plants in test tubes and bottles by providing them light, nutrient by mimicking the natural conditions. It is effectively used as tool for producing GM(Genetically Modified) plants. Don't confuse "plant tissue culture" with "HORTICULTURE" The basic of Plant Tissue Culture : Totipotency:  The ability of a single plant cell to grow into an entire plant is generally referred as totipotency. Plasticity:  The ability of plants to survive in extreme conditions by modifying their metabolism is generally referred as plasticity. Things you need to do plant tissue culture 1) Laminar air hood 2) Plant growth chamber 3)Chemicals for preparing medium 4)Autoclave 5)pH meter 6) Test tubes or Bottles with caps 7) Cotton plugs 8) Scalpels, Fo...
7 comments
Read more