In California, an army of genetically engineered mosquitoes awaits release. Will it backfire?

[brooklynite]

Los Angeles Times

In the mosquito breeding rooms of British biotech company Oxitec, scientists line up fresh eggs, each the size of a grain of salt. Using microscopic needles, the white-coated researchers inject each egg with a dab of a proprietary synthetic DNA.

For four days, Oxitec technicians care for the eggs, watching for those that hatch into wriggling brown larvae. Those “injection survivors,” as the company calls them, face a battery of tests to ensure their genetic modification is successful.

Soon, millions of these engineered mosquitoes could be set loose in California in an experiment recently approved by the federal government.

Oxitec, a private company, says its genetically modified bugs could help save half the world’s population from the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can spread diseases such as yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue to humans. Female offspring produced by these modified insects will die, according to Oxitec’s plan, causing the population to collapse.

[Hekate]

1. Last I heard scientists were releasing sterile males. Whatever -- I do hope this experiment works

The amount of misery and death spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito is phenomenal.

[Cartoonist]

2. Yes, it will probably backfire

Just ask Victor F.

[intrepidity]

3. Oh boy. Lots of red flags.

More info and details at the LAT link.

Rose told The Times that the company was still waiting for state approval while also continuing with plans to build a research facility in Visalia to aid in the work.

State officials said they plan “a rigorous scientific evaluation” of the company’s proposal that will take at least several months to complete. They said public comments can be emailed to [e-mail] until April 19.

EPA regulators agreed that what the Yale scientists had found — the transfer of DNA from the corporate-created mosquitoes to the wild population, which is called introgression — was a concern. They said the probability of this happening with the OX5034, the strain of bugs the company wants to release in California, was “likely to be significantly higher” than what the Yale study had found with an earlier generation, according to a memo written by EPA scientists.

Rose said Oxitec expected the introgression. He said the company had designed its mosquitoes so that their DNA soon disappeared from the wild population. That happens, he said, because not only do the mosquitoes with the company’s genes have female offspring that die, but they are also more vulnerable to chemical insecticides than the Aedes aegypti now in California.

An EPA spokesperson said regulators expected that mosquitoes with the corporate genes “would disappear from the environment within 10 generations of mosquitoes because they are not able to reproduce as successfully as local populations.”

Oxitec uses the antibiotic tetracycline to raise its bugs and mass produce them. When larvae of its modified mosquitoes are exposed to tetracycline, the females — which bite humans — can survive.

[Raine]

4. Most likely it'll backfire. 🙄 nt

[Rstrstx]

5. Great, but won't they just die out and get replaced by regular mosquitos?

Sounds like you’d have to be doing this constantly pretty much everywhere to even make a small dent.

[Mariana]

7. The goal isn't to eliminate mosquitoes. nt.

[Lancero]

9. That's the point. Get rid of the invasive species, and let the native species take over.

[Patterson]

10. So we're supposed to be rooting for mosquitoes.

[Phoenix61]

11. We are rooting for the ones that don't carry

diseases that kill us. Wiping out all mosquitos would have a horrific effective the environment.

[Coventina]

6. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.....

(I'm channeling Kent Brockman)

[mitch96]

8. The company Oxitec has released the modified Aedes aegypti mosquito in the Florida keys.

Lets see how it works. Their results in other places is coming on line,.

"In the Cayman Islands, Mexico and Brazil, where the technology has been used successfully, the local Aedes aegypti mosquito population was reduced by up to 95 percent, according to Oxitec. Other sites’ results have not been as positive."

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