Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The First Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Have Just Been Released in The US
https://www.sciencealert.com ^ | NICOLETTA LANESE | 6 MAY 2021

Posted on 05/06/2021 9:41:44 AM PDT by Red Badger

The biotech firm Oxitec has released its genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, with the goal of suppressing wild, disease-carrying mosquito populations in the region. This is the first time genetically modified mosquitoes have been released in the US.

Oxitec previously released its modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama, and Malaysia, and the company reported that local A. aegypti populations fell by at least 90 percent in those locations, Live Science previously reported.

A. aegypti can carry diseases such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, and releasing modified mosquitoes offers a way to control the population without using pesticides.

Oxitec's modified mosquitoes, all male, have been engineered to carry a lethal gene; when the modified pests mate with wild female mosquitoes, the lethal gene gets passed on to their offspring.

Though the gene does not affect the males' survival, it prevents female offspring from building an essential protein and thus causes them to die before reaching maturity.

Only female mosquitoes bite people (male mosquitoes exclusively drink nectar), so the modified mosquitoes and their surviving male offspring can't pass diseases to humans.

Related: Zika prevention: The buzz on genetically modified mosquitoes

A. aegypti mosquitoes make up about 4 percent of the mosquitoes in the Florida Keys but cause the vast majority of mosquito-borne disease transmitted to humans in the area, Nature reported.

The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) board typically budgets $1 million a year to control the pest, resorting to costly measures such as spraying aerial insecticides, according to Gizmodo.

Releasing hundreds of millions of genetically modified mosquitoes may be a less expensive and more effective option, the board concluded, especially as mosquito populations become resistant to pesticides over time.

FKMCD first approached Oxitec in 2010, and after a decade of regulatory assessments and local pushback, both the board and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally approved the plan to release the genetically modified mosquitoes in the Keys, according to Nature.

In late April, the company placed boxes of mosquito eggs at six locations in Cudjoe Key, Ramrod Key and Vaca Key, according to Nature. Over the next 12 weeks, about 12,000 newly hatched male mosquitoes should emerge from the boxes.

This release will serve as an initial trial so that Oxitec can collect data before running a second trial with nearly 20 million mosquitoes later this year, Nature reported.

The company will capture mosquitoes throughout the trial to observe how far the insects travel from their boxes, how long they live and whether female mosquitoes are actually picking up the lethal gene and dying off. To make it easier to track the modified mosquitoes, Oxitec introduced a gene that causes the mosquitoes to glow under a specific color of light.

The trial faces strong opposition from a small subset of Florida Keys residents, as well as the Center for Food Safety and the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, Live Science previously reported.

Concerned that the egg boxes might be vandalized, Oxitec placed them on private property and did not disclose their exact locations to the public, Nature reported.

"When something new and revolutionary comes along, the immediate reaction of a lot of people is to say 'wait,'" Anthony James, a molecular biologist who focuses on bioengineered mosquitoes at the University of California, Irvine who is not involved in the Oxitec project, told Nature.

"So the fact that [Oxitec] was able to get the trial on the ground in the United States is a big deal."

Questions remain about whether the genetically modified mosquitoes will have unintended effects on local mosquitoes, animals or the ecosystem at large, Live Science previously reported.

For instance, after Oxitec released genetically modified mosquitoes in Jacobina, Brazil, genes from the insects cropped up in local mosquito populations, hinting that the lethal gene failed to kill off some female offspring before they could mate.

Their hybrid offspring did not carry the lethal gene, but instead carried genes from the original Cuban and Mexican mosquito populations first used to create the genetically modified mosquitoes, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

It's unclear whether or how these new genes might have altered the mosquitoes' biology.

Molecular biologist Natalie Kofler, founder of Editing Nature, an organization that advocates for the responsible use of gene editing, told Nature that she hopes the Oxitec trial will be conducted "in a way that's transparent, and in a way that can make some community members feel better about the whole situation," and that the data will offer insight into how the pests might affect local species and ecosystems.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Local News; Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: aedesaegypti; biden; brazil; chikungunya; dengue; florida; floridakeys; floridaman; frankenskeeter; gmo; mosquitoes; oxitec; yellowfever; zika
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-49 next last

I've seen this movie.

It doesn't end well..................

1 posted on 05/06/2021 9:41:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

What could go wrong???


2 posted on 05/06/2021 9:43:07 AM PDT by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing obamacare is worse than obamacare itself)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

What could possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong...


3 posted on 05/06/2021 9:43:10 AM PDT by choctaw man (Good ole Andrew Jackson, or You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
What could go wrong?


4 posted on 05/06/2021 9:43:26 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

This is rather disconcerting.


5 posted on 05/06/2021 9:44:39 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

You notice how whenever we introduce a critter into the wild, we end up wishing we had not most of the time.


6 posted on 05/06/2021 9:46:41 AM PDT by lurk ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

7 posted on 05/06/2021 9:47:40 AM PDT by JonPreston (Q: Never have so many, been so wrong, so often)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Screw worm flies only breed once. They were eradicated by releasing lab-produced sterile male flies.


8 posted on 05/06/2021 9:48:21 AM PDT by ryderann
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Magnum44

oops, sorry, I didn’t see that you already posted this :)


9 posted on 05/06/2021 9:48:32 AM PDT by JonPreston (Q: Never have so many, been so wrong, so often)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: lurk

Gypsy Moths, then parasitic wasps to get the Gypsy Moths...


10 posted on 05/06/2021 9:49:01 AM PDT by small farm girl (....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Here we go again.


11 posted on 05/06/2021 9:49:07 AM PDT by bgill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Years ago one of my uncles worked on a project that sterilized mosquitoes and released them into the wild producing no offspring. I suppose the mama mosquitoes were quite frustrated. :D


12 posted on 05/06/2021 9:49:26 AM PDT by DeFault User
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
How long until they alter locusts?


13 posted on 05/06/2021 9:51:16 AM PDT by Seruzawa (The political Left is the Garden of Eden of Incompetence - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mr. K
What could go wrong???

It would have to be a lot of wrong to be worse than all of the diseases which mosquitoes transmit to people.
14 posted on 05/06/2021 9:51:28 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

15 posted on 05/06/2021 9:54:47 AM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

THEM! (ok, so those were ants, but still)


16 posted on 05/06/2021 9:56:42 AM PDT by Hazwaste (Socialists are like slinkies. Only good for pushing down stairs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

The Alaska state bird.


17 posted on 05/06/2021 9:57:50 AM PDT by dainbramaged (Sentries report Zulus to the Southwest - thousands of 'em.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Isn’t the entire premise here ,”hetero normative”??

It assumes male and female mating.

What about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender mosquitos? Why are their rights ignored?


18 posted on 05/06/2021 9:58:04 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

I have a bad feeling about this project.

We may have the technology but we are not God.


19 posted on 05/06/2021 9:58:05 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (As Patrick Henry once said, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" Especially now.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego

And what about the Qs? Those mosquitoes who are still questioning their sexuality?

They’d better decide quickly because I don’t think they live that long.


20 posted on 05/06/2021 10:00:04 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (As Patrick Henry once said, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" Especially now.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-49 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson