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Keyword: wolbachia

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  • Sickly mosquitoes stymie malaria’s spread - Researchers harness bacteria to cripple insects that...

    05/09/2013 2:21:30 PM PDT · by neverdem · 11 replies
    Nature News ^ | 09 May 2013 | Beth Mole
    Researchers harness bacteria to cripple insects that transmit disease. Scientists have engineered mosquitoes to carry a bacterium that confers resistance to the malaria parasite — a long-sought advance that could eventually curb malaria cases in humans. A team led by Zhiyong Xi, a medical entomologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing, infected Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria to produce insects that could pass the infection on to their offspring. Female mosquitoes that carried Wolbachia also bred with uninfected mates, the researchers report today in Science, swiftly spreading the malaria-blocking bacterium to entire insect populations within eight generations1. “This...
  • Microbes: Fighting Mosquito-Transmitted Viruses With Bacteria That Infect Many Insects

    01/06/2010 8:07:43 PM PST · by neverdem · 12 replies · 480+ views
    NY Times ^ | January 5, 2010 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
    A type of bacteria that infects many insects may make mosquitoes more resistant to viruses that can be dangerous to humans, researchers have found. The discovery could be helpful in the battles against two painful and sometimes fatal diseases, dengue and chikungunya. Last year, researchers showed they could take Wolbachia bacteria from fruit flies and infect mosquitoes with it, cutting their already brief life spans by half. That discovery was important because most of the malaria transmitted by female mosquitoes is transmitted late in their lives. They must pick up the parasites by biting an infected human, and it takes...