- #1
Jeff Rosenbury
- 746
- 145
Some mosquitoes (ex. aedes aegypti) spread zika virus and some don't. My question is, what are the key differences between the species?
My motivation: I recently read an article about spreading genetically modified sterile mosquitoes to try to impact the populations of zika spreading mosquitoes. This seems like a short sighted solution since it opposes survival of the fittest and populations will soon become immune to this sort of thing.
A better solution is often finding another species which out competes the undesirable species. (Still rather short sighted, BTW.) The most obvious choice would be to genetically modify the mosquitoes to not carry zika. (It's not as if zika is essential to the mosquitoes life cycle.) Dropping this GM strain with the sterile strain might make the zeka immune strain a competitive advantage and embed it as a competitor to the unmodified strain.
If I understand my disease models properly, even a small drop in transmission rates can halt an epidemic.
However this does depend on being able to easily genetically modify the mosquitoes. The big concern would be making them non-viable in the wild. I don't know if that is possible. Hence the question.
There are obvious problems with smashing the natural order like this (these interventions always seem to have blowback), but as long as were doing it anyway with the sterile strain, why not do it right? Anyway, that's a policy discussion for another thread.
My motivation: I recently read an article about spreading genetically modified sterile mosquitoes to try to impact the populations of zika spreading mosquitoes. This seems like a short sighted solution since it opposes survival of the fittest and populations will soon become immune to this sort of thing.
A better solution is often finding another species which out competes the undesirable species. (Still rather short sighted, BTW.) The most obvious choice would be to genetically modify the mosquitoes to not carry zika. (It's not as if zika is essential to the mosquitoes life cycle.) Dropping this GM strain with the sterile strain might make the zeka immune strain a competitive advantage and embed it as a competitor to the unmodified strain.
If I understand my disease models properly, even a small drop in transmission rates can halt an epidemic.
However this does depend on being able to easily genetically modify the mosquitoes. The big concern would be making them non-viable in the wild. I don't know if that is possible. Hence the question.
There are obvious problems with smashing the natural order like this (these interventions always seem to have blowback), but as long as were doing it anyway with the sterile strain, why not do it right? Anyway, that's a policy discussion for another thread.