According to the Viewspaper, British researchers are developing GE mosquitoes to deal with malaria. A few strategies they are working with, thanks to $38 million in grants from the Gates foundation, are engineering the insects to be resistant to the malaria parasite, and inserting a gene for sterility in males to control the populations. However, one has to question the way we are chosing to control this disease, and whether we are creating a larger problem then we are solving.

(image credit: Pachakutic on Flickr)

While genetically engineered food does not solve any real problem, and therefor is absolutely not worth the risk (read What is wrong with GE food?), Malaria is a devastating disease. 3 million people die every year from the illness which is transmitted by mosquitoes. One could argue that saving 3 million lives per year is worth releasing a new gene into the environment, however we have to seriously consider the long term implications.

First off, inserting a sterility gene into an animal and released into the environment is incredibly dangerous. When birds and dragonflies eat the mosquitoes, the gene could transfer into the larger animals body through horizontal gene transfer.

One also has to consider that when mosquitoes sting human beings, they inject saliva into our blood in order to block the hemostasis system (the system which naturally stops us from bleeding). Their saliva consists of at least 20 active, and many inactive proteins. Any gene manipulation is going to have unintended effects on how proteins are created and expressed, and will likely lead to the creation of novel proteins. Essentially by genetically engineering mosquitoes, we are again using human beings in an uncontrolled genetic experiment, although this time it will be sub-Saharan Africa instead of North America.

I believe that this method of reducing disease is akin to swallowing an uncontrollable genetically-engineered spider to kill the fly.