In a basement on the Irvine campus of the University of California, two teams of biologists have created a novel breed of mosquito that they hope will help eradicate malaria from the world. The mosquito has been engineered to carry two ingenious genetic modifications.

One is a set of genes that spew out antibodies to the malarial parasite harboured by the mosquito. Mosquitoes with these genes are rendered resistant to the parasite and so cannot spread malaria.

The other modification is a set of genetic elements known as a gene drive that should propel the malaria-resistance genes throughout a natural mosquito population.............Read more

Source: The Times of India