Malaysia Messes With Mosquito Genes to Fight Dengue Fever
By: Jami Heimbuch
Published: 10.12.2010
Travel and Nature Magazine
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| The deadly mosquitoes |
Summary: This article is telling us about the mosquitoes, they are the primary way of spreading diseases in humans, the spread nowadays malaria or the evil dengue fever.
Malaysia has been fighting a frustrated battle with dengue fever, and might become the first Asian country to use genetically engineered insects, rather than pesticides or managed water ways, to fight against the spread of the disease.
Malaysia has started a test for genetically engineering male mosquitoes -- when they are released from the lab, they will breed with females mosquitoes to produce offspring with shorter lifespans.
The Malaysian hope is that the population of mosquitoes will be reduced, and along with it cases of disease among humans.
The disease the test is primarily focused on is the dangerous dengue fever, because it has no cure of treatment to avoid and destroy the virus.
Researchers seem to feel genetically changing the lifespan of mosquitoes is the best course of action since the Malaysians water is not clean and the chances that it would get clean are very low chances .
However, local environmental scientists are worried that the genetic change could have consequences beyond reducing disease in the far future -- after all, there are many species that feed off mosquitoes, and reducing the number of mosquitoes also means reducing food sources from birds to fish to other insects. The project plans to release between 2,000 and 3,000 of the newly modified mosquitoes -- a fairly small number to start, but enough to see whether or not mosquito numbers begin to drop. I guess we would see in the next couple months if the results are good or bad.
My opinion: I think that by modifying the genes of mosquitoes, it will surly hurt other species that are being fed of mosquitoes, this is a very risky step that might cause the world major changes in population and biodiversity,i hope it will not intervene too much with other species. The idea of the scientists is good and i think it will reduce completely the number of human infected by the dangerous disease, but yet i hope that no other species would be damaged completely by humans.
3 Questions-
1. In what ways would you try to remove the mosquitoes which spread difficult diseases?
2. What do you think might happen to species that are being fed of mosquitoes? Explain about their food chain?
3. Do you think this experiment could work? why or why not?
Today's scientific abilities are emmense. I would have never believed we could genetically engineer a mosquito to die quicker! We probably take the gene from a different insect that dies quicker and inject it into the mosquito eggs. I think this would be great for the human population and save lives. However, it would be bad for the animals that eat the mosquitos. We would disrupt the food web and food chain. The other animals in the food web might not have as much to eat and they might start to decrease in population. To make up for the mosquitos that they lost as prey, they will have to depend more on other animals for prey, which will decrease the prey's population.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to qustion 3:
Yes this experiment could work. We already have the process of genetically engineering fruit and we can probably genetically engineer animals too.
It is crazy that we now have the technonlogy to do this stuff. I agree with Lior that this will probably affect some other nimal in the food chain. But i can't really say for sure because I don't know what animal eats mosquitoes. The experiaent I think it will go good. I don't know of anyone who likes mosquitoe bites! they are gross and they itch. It would be great to rid of such an awful creature. It will help humans greatly. I know a lot of people that will be happy in the summer if this experiment goes good.
ReplyDeleteI also agree.I think that it is great that we are technilogically advanced enough to be able to alter life spans, hair, eyes, and more. But i think that if we intervene too much then it will eventually come back to hurt us. Trust me, i want mosquitoes reduced just as much as the next guy, they are annoying and a big nuicence, but i dont want to make large sacrifices for a small gain. I hope it does not hurt many people or other species in the process. It would be really cool if they succeeded in this experiment.
ReplyDeleteHere are some new questions.
1) What are some of the species that you think would be hurt?
2) Do you think that any species would benefit from this, if so which ones?
3) How difficult do you think that it would be to go through with and succeed in this experiment.
I have to agree with Lior in that although the scientists designing this genetically engineered mosquito have the right idea at heart, they may be taking a huge risk by altering such a largely influential insect. You never know how much a small drop in population for this species could affect other organisms within that ecosystem.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040122085500.htm
The link posted above talks about this problem along with other insects that scientists have been considering to engineer. One of the biggest problems that they face is that if these insects do make their mark in the wild and overrun the past insects, then we could very possibly develope all new problems that we would have no idea how to fix. If these problems do develope, then it could take years to solve them and figure out how to handle them.