EPA approves bio-engineered mosquitoes to combat disease
The federal government has approved a new bio-engineered "assassin mosquito" that could help diminish the wild mosquito populations that carry infectious diseases like Zika, Dengue fever and yellow fever by targeting reproduction, according to a recent report in the science journal Nature.
MoqutioMate, a biotechnology startup based in Lexington, Ky., infects male mosquitoes with the common, natural bacterium Wolbachia pipientis that specifically targets the reproduction of mosquitoes but does not harm animals, humans or other insects, according to the company's website. The hope is that these infected mosquitoes will diminish wild Asian tiger mosquito populations, which are prone to carry infectious diseases.
The lab-grown Asian tiger male mosquitoes, which don't bite, will be released into wild mosquito populations to mate with Asian tiger mosquito females, according to MosquitoMate. Their fertilized eggs won't hatch, though, as the bacterium in the infected males keeps paternal chromosomes from fully forming, stopping population growth.
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Though not yet formally announced, the EPA approved on Nov. 3 MosquitoMate's release of the infected mosquitoes in 20 states and Washington, D.C. starting next summer, according to Nature. The federal agency did not approve their release in much of the southeastern United States, which suffers from large populations of mosquitoes and a long mosquito season, because MosquitoMate has not yet performed field trials there.
Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate, told Nature that his company plans to submit an application to the EPA for a nationwide release after a recent successful trial period in the Florida Keys.
Similar lab-grown mosquito projects are underway in both Brazil – where the 2015 Zika outbreak led to large-scale releases of bioengineered mosquitoes – and China, which has a pilot program in Guangzhou that releases 5 million Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes each week.
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