Scientists genetically engineer a lethal mosquito STD to combat malaria
newatlas.com48 points by burnt-resistor 15 days ago
48 points by burnt-resistor 15 days ago
We were going to release something like this in California but environmental groups killed it.
I've been having some success with "mosquito dunks" in buckets here in Los Angeles but unless the neighbors do it to we still get bit
LA has a project where sterile male mosquitos are released[1]. Females only mate once, so this absolutely wrecks mosquito populations. It's the same strategy that keep screwworms contained at the Darrien Gap.
[1] https://www.glamosquito.org/2024-04-12-innovative-pilot-prog...
Screwworms have actually broken through the Darrien Gap and hopes of recontaining them are slim.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/05/screwwor...
I'd say the USDA will handle this, but there has never been less competent leadership at the top so we're probably toast unless someone is brave enough to let rip with a gene drive attack (which I would personally love to see, biotech reactionaries be damned).
This is by far the safer way to do these things. You never know what's going to happen when you Geneer a completely new organism and then release it into the wild.
In this cade, I disagree with environmentalists. Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all the wars, possibly half whoever lived or 50 billion. They aren't essential.
Interesting thought - ARE mosquitoes essential? What actually do they do in the food chain? Simply provide food/biomass for frogs/fish/etc?
An old friend had lived in one of the West African countries for a couple of years. She said that the then president used to say that the capital should have a large statue of a mosquito, since mosquito-borne diseases had greatly reduced the intensity of colonialism.
Why did they kill it? Were risks identified independent of eliminating mosquitoes, or was it killed due to perceived causal effects of eliminating mosquitoes?
Because diseases have a tendency to recombine and jump hosts - it could become a human plague- similar to malaria..
From the link provided by user mullingitover:
> This initiative introduces X-ray sterilized male mosquitoes in target areas as part of a Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) pilot program
It is highly unlikely that x-ray sterilized male mosquitos would cause a human plague similar to malaria.
That was a sibling comment of the GP (sterilized mosquitos), the article itself is about a genetically engineered disease.
The article has mosquitos "releasing toxic proteins in their semen". Seems like the sterilization is a much better option. "We promise it's not toxic to humans" didn't turn out so well for RoundUp.
> I've been having some success with "mosquito dunks" in buckets
Huh, TIL [1].
[1] https://www.countryliving.com/gardening/a65047508/mosquito-b...
> You can use them just about anywhere that collects water—bird baths, fish ponds, etc.–because BTi is totally non-toxic to other wildlife. The only caveat here is that you don't want to use mosquito dunks in water that'll be ingested or touched by humans, so avoid using it in pools.
It's totally safe! Except for two species: mosquitos and humans. Right. At least the label [1] doesn't make any claims about it being safe for wildlife. It just says it's not safe for humans (and mosquitos.)
Once I realized that I live in a human supremacist society, it's hard not to notice it everywhere. The same paragraph you highlighted also stood out to me. Recommended reading [1]
[1] https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/08/mm-12-human-supremacy/
Maybe if they do it in neighboring states, some of the mosquitos will fly over the border.
"Recently, mosquitoes and mosquito-borne parasites have developed resistance to chemical treatments and antimalarial drugs."
This seems similar to phage therapy, in that the treatment continues to evolve along with the target.
The treatment in the above article is a fungus. "Despite being lethal to mosquitoes, the transgenic Metarhizium fungus is harmless in humans."
Funny that you mention phage therapy as the first person to implement desease-based pest control for bugs was Félix d'Hérelle, better known for having invented phage therapy a few years later.
His biography is definitely worth reading as his life was entertaining to say the least.
I worked in Raymond St. Leger’s lab for a short time in college. I can pass along any questions you have, and will send him the link to this discussion.
> “ Unlike pesticides or other chemical control methods that mosquitoes can develop resistance to, this method uses the mosquitoes’ own biology to deliver the control agent.”
I don’t understand why mosquitos can develop resistance to chemicals but not a fungal infection, regardless of the delivery method. Can Raymond shed some light on this?
Tell them to keep up the good work. The only good mosquito is a dead mosquito! I'm doing my part!
Except for all the living things that eat mosquitos, and which in turn get eaten by other things, or eat other pests besides mosquitos
> Except for all the living things that eat mosquitos, and which in turn get eaten by other things, or eat other pests besides mosquitoes
The mosquitoes that cause disease in humans are almost uniquely ecologically useless [1]. Particularly in North America, where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is "believed to have arrived to the Americas during the 17th century by ship during the slave trade" [2].
Is there any living thing that eats mosquitos and nothing else? There seems to be no shortage of other tiny flying insects in the world for critters to munch on.
“Is there any living person that eats rice and nothing else? There seems to be no shortage of other grains in the world for humans to munch on.”
Obviously then, eliminating rice would have catastrophic consequences.
They can eat something else, we can make them mosquito shaped dietary supplements if they want.
We've driven almost a thousand species to extinction so far, we ought to finally do one that actually deserves it.
Mosquitoes aren't “one specie” though, but rather several thousands.
Also, most of their lives is spent as aquatic larvae, not flying pests.
Great work! Does this method have any distinct advantages over infecting mosquitos with Wolbachia? Thank you.
Why don't we kill off a species at the bottom of a food pyramid. What can go wrong?
Who needs frogs and swallows anyway?!?
> What can go wrong?
Not that much [1].
> Who needs frogs and swallows anyway?!?
They were fine before we introduced Aedes aegypti to North America in the 17th century [2].
I'm sure it's controversial, but I think general concern for the environment would increase if we killed off human-biting mosquitos. I and lots of other people avoid going outside for large parts of the year due to mosquitos. Walks, if at all, are brisk. No eating outside, no hanging out in parks, exercise at a gym, run to your car, etc. It's hard to care about the environment when you're never in it.
I guess my stance is (maybe) the benefits of getting rid of human-biting mosquitos could outweigh the negatives of the effect it'd have on ecology.
This particular form of mosquito control seems to be untargeted and will affect all species. Which also makes it that much more likely that it will be evolved around (but that could still be a win, if Aedes Aegypti got replaced with a fungus resistant species).
> Not that much [1].
Uhh, I read the paper and it's like here is evidence it would be a problem, anyway since there isn't any convincing evidence that it would be a problem let's just go ahead.
> “Mosquitoes are delectable things to eat and they’re easy to catch,” says aquatic entomologist Richard Merritt, at Michigan State University in East Lansing. In the absence of their larvae, hundreds of species of fish would have to change their diet to survive. “This may sound simple, but traits such as feeding behaviour are deeply imprinted, genetically, in those fish,” says Harrison. The mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), for example, is a specialized predator — so effective at killing mosquitoes that it is stocked in rice fields and swimming pools as pest control — that could go extinct. And the loss of these or other fish could have major effects up and down the food chain. Many species of insect, spider, salamander, lizard and frog would also lose a primary food source. In one study published last month, researchers tracked insect-eating house martins at a park in Camargue, France, after the area was sprayed with a microbial mosquito-control agent1 . They found that the birds produced on average two chicks per nest after spraying, compared with three for birds at control sites. Most mosquito-eating birds would probably switch to other insects that, post-mosquitoes, might emerge in large numbers to take their place. Other insectivores might not miss them at all: bats feed mostly on moths, and less than 2% of their gut content is mosquitoes. “If you’re expending energy,” says medical entomologist Janet McAllister of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado, “are you going to eat the 22-ounce filet-mignon moth or the 6-ounce hamburger mosquito?” With many options on the menu, it seems that most insecteaters would not go hungry in a mosquito-free world. There is not enough evidence of ecosystem disruption here to give the eradicators pause for thought.
You’re conflating eradicating disease-causing mosquitoes with eradicating all mosquitoes. To the extent that overinclusion occurs, it’s with traditional chemical pesticides. Not these novel methods.
No known species goes extinct if we eradicate disease-causing mosquitoes in the Americas. No known ecosystem collapses. Which is unsurprising, again, given they weren’t here until a few hundred years ago.
I'm criticizing a paper called "A WORLD WITHOUT MOSQUITOES". I find it does a very poor job of explaining on what basis they claim that all the food web issues would go away simply by "would probably switch" citation needed.
The paper does not focus on disease-causing mosquitoes in the Americas. I'm more open to that case, especially since they are an invasive species here, but that paper simply isn't a good argument for that case.
> The paper does not focus on disease-causing mosquitoes in the Americas
The paper looks for the effects of eradicating all mosquitoes and fails to find evidence it would be ecologically catastrophic. That isn’t an argument for doing it. (Nor, as you say, evidence of its absence.) But it helps constrain the blast radius of more-limited actions, such as wiping out only invasive, disease-spreading ones, all Anopheles varieties or even all human-biting varieties. (And somewhat suggests “frogs and swallows” going extinct as a result is hyperbole.)
Next do ticks.
> “It’s essentially an arms race between the mosquitoes and us," says St. Leger. "Just as they keep adapting to what we create, we have to continuously develop new and creative ways to fight them,”
I just had a vision of Jeff Goldblum muttering something...
Easy guess:
Nature will find a way around this - and - a "rabbits in Australia" outcome is quite possible.
Much better to use AI to design a multi-enzyme/protein pill / vaccine to get humans & pets & livestock out of the mosquito food chain.
"when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death"
What could possibly go wrong?
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Nothing? This helps us in many ways... One way it helps is to kill Mosquitoes, but this technology could be used in all kinds of ways... For example, this STD is targeted to Mosquitoes and designed to be lethal, but you could use the same technology to target other species/populations perhaps to kill or to inflect various other ailments on them.
This is the same anti-progress view that cause people oppose things like gain-a-function research. Just because something can be used for various bad things, doesn't mean there aren't a few good things the technology can unlock if we want to use them in that way.
Nothing? As in it isn’t used or doesn’t work.
Leading questions don’t actually mean something is problematic.
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It is a fungus that is harmless for humans, so I assume not that much. Of course it is always dangerous to artificially mess with an ecosystem. It has backfired more often than it has worked as intended when humans did that.
Most of the time it’s been extremely successful when we mess with ecosystems.
We just call it farming, cities, etc.
Might be a good time to stop having sex with mosquitos.
Can't have sex with mosquitos, but they do stick a needle into your blood
There is a Kurzgesagt article on the human virome that may provide some background.
> Scientists genetically engineer a lethal mosquito STD to combat malaria
Nothing could possibly go wrong.
