Engineering Malaria Resistant Mosquitoes Key to Ending Age old Epidemic.docx

Engineering Malaria Resistant Mosquitoes Key to Ending Age old Epidemic
Malaria is one of the worlds largest issues (World Heath Organization (WHO), 2021). It
affects nations worldwide but primarily in warmer climates. Malaria is one of leading causes of
death in African nations and can be especially deadly in young children and pregnant mothers
(WHO, 2021). Malaria-resistant mosquitoes are being explored as a method of malaria
transmission control (Marrelli et al., 2007). Malaria is commonly spread through the bite of an
infected female mosquitoes that transmit the malaria parasite during feeding (WHO, 2021).
Transgenic Malaria-resistant mosquitoes are manufactured by introducing genes into the genome
that inhibit the development of plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria (Marrelli et al.,
2007). This is called a transgene (WHO, 2021). An experiment was run testing the fitness, rate /
ability to reproduce, of mosquitoes with the transgene vs. mosquitoes without the transgene
(Marrelli et al., 2007). The two types of mosquitoes were placed with malaria infected and non
malaria infected mice (Marrelli et al., 2007). The research found that although there was no
difference in fitness when feeding on non infected mice populations, when feeding on infected