A new #CRISPR gene editing approach disrupts a female-essential gene in the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae, and could offer a sustained and confinable way to suppress mosquito populations.
This is huge, and I'm thankful for having read it.
I'm a little confused as to how a sex-specific gene, especially one meant to spread through males, is not inherently self-propagating, though. Maybe I don't understand. They're not going to automatically snuff it once the population drops far enough. That's not how reproduction works and this is effective enough to risk a total population collapse.
It would be one of our most effective tools, but as always I think it's playing chicken with the ecosystem and I'm really putting my hopes behind tackling plasmodium itself, rather than seriously disrupting a popular point on the food chain. This is a way to put things on hold while we research something more permanent. I know attempts to interfere with sporozoite reproduction in mosquitos will probably never reach as far if there's no way to avoid the quicker die off in carriers, but I can dream.
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