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posted by Woods on Wednesday April 30 2014, @12:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the as-long-as-they-cannot-play-futebol dept.

The Brazilian government have decided in a 2-year trial to test genetically modified variant of the male mosquito Aedes aegypti that's common in the northeastern Brazil to combat the spread of dengue fever. Dengue is endemic in three of the host cities for this summer's World Cup. "We need to provide the government alternatives because the system we are using now in Brazil doesn't work," says Aldo Malavasi, president of Moscamed, the Brazilian company that's running the trial from a lab just outside of Jacobina.

The mosquitoes in the lab have their genes modified in the lab such that their offspring dies. Only the female mosquitoes bite, so only male mosquitoes are released which mate with wild females and produce offspring that die before they can reproduce. The technique is developed by the British company Oxitec with roots in Syngenta and GeneWatch points out that Oxitec are not totally transparent about the potential risks (like spontaneous DNA alterations).

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Wednesday April 30 2014, @05:56AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday April 30 2014, @05:56AM (#37990) Journal

    This is an example of the sterile insect technique [wikipedia.org] which is a well-known approach for insect control, and works very well for insect species that perhaps mate only once in their lifetime (the female perhaps storing a batch of sperm internally for several egg-laying cycles) or die off soon after their mating cycle is complete. This was how screwworm flies [wikipedia.org] were eradicated in most of North America. They sent out millions of male flies sterilised by irradiation, which mated with female flies in the wild, and these females produced no offspring, and apparently they didn't mate again, keeping a non-viable batch of sperm from the sterile male. Not sure how well it would work with the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that cause dengue and yellow fever though. Apparently, unlike screwworm flies, mosquitoes will mate with males while they live. They mate, find a blood meal, rest for a few days, then lay their eggs. Soon after that, they can mate again. In the wild these mosquitoes can perhaps survive for a couple of weeks, so they may perform 2-3 mating cycles depending on whether they can get a blood meal.

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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:48AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:48AM (#38332) Homepage

    This is interesting too:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherited_sterility_ in_insects [wikipedia.org]

    I'm thinkin' this F1 generation is where we'd see a real decline in mosquitoes.

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