Abstract
Ingenious exploitation of transgenic approaches to produce malaria resistant or sterile mosquitoes, or hypervirulent mosquito pathogens, has produced many potential solutions to vector borne diseases. However, in spite of technological feasibility, it has not been determined how well these new methods will work, and how they should be tested and regulated. Some self-limiting transgenic fungal pathogens and mosquitoes are almost field ready, and may be easier to regulate than self-sustaining strategies. However, they require repeat sales and so must show business viability; low-cost mass production is just one of a number of technical constraints that are sometimes treated as an afterthought in technology deployment. No transgenic self-sustaining approach to anopheline control has ever been deployed because of unresolved ethical, social and regulatory issues. These overlapping issues include: 1) the transparency challenge, which requires public discourse, particularly in Africa where releases are proposed, to determine what society is willing to risk given the potential benefits; 2) the transboundary challenge, self-sustaining mosquitoes or pathogens are potentially capable of crossing national boundaries and irreversibly altering ecosystems, and 3) the risk assessment challenge. The polarized debate as to whether these technologies will ever be used to save lives is ongoing; they will founder without a political answer as to how do we interpret the precautionary principle, as exemplified in the Cartagena protocol, in the global context of technological changes.
Highlights
“One strong and enduring lesson of the past four decades of biotechnology is how often great ideas fail even after good initial results”
With Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding the Target Malaria team recently reported that a single release of male mosquitoes expressing an anti-CRISPR protein (AcrIIA4), could stop the doublesex drive spreading in a caged population [58], though how they will test this countermeasure is unclear as DARPA Safe Genes contracts expressly forbid conducting a field trail
It is unlikely that there will be a single strategy that is optimal in all conditions, and the collective goal of scientists working in the field of mosquito control is to provide a wide range of options and resources that different communities can exploit according to their circumstances
Summary
“One strong and enduring lesson of the past four decades of biotechnology is how often great ideas fail even after good initial results”. Much attention is being focused on using genetic engineering (GE) to reduce, or possibly eliminate, populations of the three species of mosquito most responsible for malaria transmission — An. gambiae, An. coluzzii, and An. arabiensis — for example, by modifying males so all their offspring are infertile, or by engineering hypervirulent pathogens that selectively kill mosquitoes [6, 7]. The biosafety implications for this approach maybe relatively manageable given the expectation that transgenes will only persist for one or a few generations after release This has contributed to self-limiting strategies being much more advanced in terms of practical application than self-sustaining (propagating) strategies. If successful, a small number of GM mosquitoes with these constructs might be able to propagate transgenes over the entire range of a species
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
