Posted on 03/10/2022 6:14:48 PM PST by Jan_Sobieski
The stinging mosquito; the blood-sucking beast; the destroyer of your evening peace; and the silent killer of your midnight sleep. Who knew these pesky little super-spreader of diseases could be transformed into flying vaccine-carrying syringes.
Turning killers into saviours
The story goes back 11 years ago when a group of Japanese researchers genetically engineered mosquitoes that spread vaccines instead of disease. Now normally when mosquitoes bite, they inject a tiny drop of saliva that prevents your blood from clotting. What this group did was add an antigen--a compound that triggers an immune response--to the mix of proteins in their saliva.
For their study, the group attached SP15 vaccine against leishmaniasis--a parasitic disease spread by sand flies that can cause skin sores and organ damage--to a malaria mosquito. These mosquitoes produced SP15 in their saliva, the team reported in their paper published in Insect Molecular Biology, and mice bitten by these mosquitoes produced antibodies against the parasite.
However, the team wasn’t sure whether the immune response was strong enough to protect against infection. In the experiment, mice were bitten some 1,500 times on average; and although that number may seem quite staggering, other studies show that in places where malaria is rampant, people get bitten more than 100 times a night…
(Excerpt) Read more at indiatimes.com ...
My first thought as well.
I’d rather be bitten by a moose.
Time to eat lots and lots of garlic. I had a neighbor in FL that never got bit by mosquitos. On the down side, he would take a shower and immediately after, had a body odor. He was exuding garlic 24/7/365
Kind of like putting fluoride in all the drinking eater. 🤔
With mosquitos dispensing the vaccine, people will receive varying levels of it
________________________
so what! They will just die, which I presume is the intent anyway. Bill Gates-mass serial killer
Dodo birds might have some value. I cant imagine anything positive in bringing back any kind of rat.
Well, I would like to study one of those rat like things with opposable thumbs that are supposed to have lived in China a few million years ago but I dont think we will be getting a sample of those any time soon and I certainly wouldnt want them released anywhere.
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.