{"id":3127,"date":"2009-12-22T18:21:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T18:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/new-malaria-strategy-no-mosquito-babies-no-problem-80beats\/"},"modified":"2009-12-22T18:21:57","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T18:21:57","slug":"new-malaria-strategy-no-mosquito-babies-no-problem-80beats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/new-malaria-strategy-no-mosquito-babies-no-problem-80beats.php","title":{"rendered":"New Malaria Strategy: No Mosquito Babies, No Problem | 80beats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers from the Imperial College London have a new strategy to combat malaria. The species of mosquito<\/a> responsible for the spread of malaria<\/a> in Africa, <\/span>Anopheles gambiae<\/em>,<\/span> only mates<\/a> once during its life. Putting a stop to their one shot at reproduction should slow down malaria transmission. Anopheles<\/em> males deploy a glob of proteins and fluids known as a “mating plug” <\/span>that is<\/span> essential for ensuring sperm is correctly retained in the female’s sperm storage organ, from where she can fertilise eggs over the course of her lifetime [BBC News<\/a>]. Without a mating plug, the sperm is not stored and the mosquitoes can’t reproduce.<\/span><\/span> Simply put, the researchers want to prevent male mosquitoes from plugging in the wild. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>

Anopheles gambiae <\/em>is the only known species of mosquito to use a mating plug. (However, mating plugs are found in other animals where they prevent multiple males from reproducing with a female. Plug checking mice in research laboratories is a right of passage for many graduate students.) In their research, written up<\/a> in the journal <\/span><\/span><\/span>PLoS Biology<\/span><\/em>, scientists were able to alter the mosquitoes’ genes so that they could no longer form a plug, and thus were unable to reproduce. <\/span><\/span><\/span>If this process could be developed for use in the field, perhaps in a spray form like an insecticide, it could “effectively induce sterility in female mosquitoes in the wild,” [study author <\/span><\/span>Flaminia<\/span>] Catteruccia wrote, offering potential as “one more weapon in the arsenal against malaria” [Reuters<\/a>]. The WHO is optimistic that their increased funding efforts will produce more technologies similar to this one and that, hopefully, one of them will prove effective.<\/span>
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Related Content:
80beats: Potential Mosquito Repellent Keeps Them From Smelling Victims’ Breath<\/a>
80beats: DEET Is Harmful to Cells in Lab Settings. What’s the Significance?<\/a>
80beats: The Ultimate Source of Malaria Is Found in Chimps<\/a><\/p>

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Researchers from the Imperial College London have a new strategy to combat malaria. The species of mosquito responsible for the spread of malaria in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, only mates once during its life. Putting a stop to their one shot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}