Wednesday 10 October 2018

GM Mosquitoes: A quantum-leap tool against malaria

What I read

In the article "GM mosquitoes a ‘quantum leap’ towards tackling malaria", Vaughan reports a quantum-leap technology, genetic modification of mosquitoes, that will make a hefty contribution to abolish malaria. Female mosquitoes (Anopheles gambaie) is a vehicle of malaria that kills more than 1 million people per year, especially in African children. To protect mosquitoes-biting, people use different ways: bed nets and insecticides, nevertheless, they are not sustainable ways for breaking; therefore, the Imperial College London launch a new technique by injection the mosquitoes with a gene called “I-PpoI” isolated from slime mould that causes a vast majority (95%) of the mosquitoes’ offsprings to be male because males don’t bite humans. The GM mosquitoes consequently give a long-term benefit by making substantial supplementary to eradicating malaria, combined with other tools such as insecticides.

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My response 

After reading the article, most people might honour the genetic modification of mosquitoes (GM mosquitoes) technique as a sustainable and effective way to reduce the growth rate of female mosquitoes that is the vector of Plasmodium falciparum causing malaria disease. This technique not only indirectly decrease the death rates of malaria but also friendly to environment because of without insecticides or other chemical agents. In addition, from my point of view, I believe that lots of countries in the tropical zone: Africa, Kenya, Kana and others, dramatically hope that the GM mosquitoes will be completed and publicly released soon; moreover, they probably have no problem with lacking of mosquitoes.  

One one hand, I rebut that the GM mosquitoes, although, seem to be a quantum-leap method that possibly use to reduce a population of the female mosquitoes by changing to males in their chromosomes and might cut down the human deaths rate of malaria, it might be bad for the world's ecosystem. Concerning the genomes, it could be said that the genome sequences of organisms in the same genera or species are similar. This point clearly illustrated that if the GM mosquitoes have bred with other females in same genera, the whole gene of I-PpoI or its residues might be transmitted to their offsprings. What happens with the offsprings? Surely the ecosystem may be permeated only with male mosquitoes; hence, the mosquitoes might finally be extinction.

Based on the malarial infection, the mosquitoes are not the main factor, but the real organism that causes the disease is Plasmodium sp. including P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale and P. malariae. Consequently, to completely eradicate malaria, we have to find how to remove Plasmodium sp. from the mosquitoes instead kill or reduce them.
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My question

Do you agree with the GM mosquitoes technique for reducing the deaths from malaria? And why do you agree or disagree? 
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Reference


  • Vaughan, A. (2014). GM mosquitoes a ‘quantum leap’ towards tackling malaria. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/10/gm-mosquitos-malaria-genetic-modification.

3 comments:

  1. This is really interesting article about one way to give solution for the malaria disease. However, I disagree with this technique because it has impact effect on ecosystem as well as the mosquitoes aren't the mail reason behind malaria as you mentioned above. In my opinion; if the governments provide a clean living environments for people in Africa, the number of deaths will surely decrease. There are several alternative environmentally methods and strategies to suppress the risk of mosquitoes caused malaria such as, discharge soils into swamps and use them as farm.

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  2. As with so many, such as Bubble's latest post below, Kieng's modern issue, which is really an ancient issue, would make a great topic for an essay supporting one viewpoint over another, and as his thoughtful comments suggest, Kieng appears to think that genetic modification (GM) is not the best solution.

    I'm in two minds, but inclined to think that the GM approach is a good one. I don't think it's that radically different to what we humans have been doing for millennia as we selectively bred animals and plants to better serve our interests. There are certainly risks, but the very large benefit of saving millions of lives seems to me to outweigh the possible risks. But perhaps someone would like to write an essay to persuade me that I'm wrong.

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    Replies
    1. Tip:
      If you make the title in your summary a link, that is very helpful to readers who would like to follow up the source.

      Delete

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