Fight Mosquito with Mosquito 

By Kyron George 

        Everyone has heard of the saying, Fight fire with fire.  MosquitoMate, a company out of Louisville Kentucky,  has developed a way to fight mosquito with mosquito.  By changing the chromosomes of the males, when they mate it will cause the females eggs not to hatch.  This article interested me and caught my attention for two reasons: we are learning about chromosomes in class and this article applies that knowledge in real life, also because a family friend was infected with the West Nile virus.

        The Asian Tiger mosquito (Aedes Albopictus) is a common mosquito in the U.S. and very popular in the southeastern states.  It's known for spreading West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, encephalitis and dengue fever.  Pesticides have commonly been the solution to the peoples pest problem.  However their are new claims that common repellents are cancerous, people are constantly trying to find new and safer methods of protection from mosquitoes.  MosquitoMate has came up with a solution to killing off harmful mosquitoes

        By infecting lab born mosquitoes with the bacteria Wolbachia, and then separating the males from females.  They then release the non-biting males into the wild mosquito population.  The Wolbachia infected males will mate with the local females.  When the males mate with an uninfected female, the eggs will not hatch because the paternal chromosomes do not form properly.  Thus slowly stopping the population of mosquito from spreading.

     MosquitoMate has been approved by the EPA to start releasing the Wolbachia infected males into the wild of 20 states so far.  Other countries are already using mosquitoes to counter mosquitoes.  Brazil has had a problem with the Zika virus, a virus that causes birth defects. Brazil hired Oxitec, a company from the UK, to develop a modified mosquito that passes on a lethal gene to any progeny.

    I found this article fascinating to read about because I could connect the dots from what we are learning in biology with their method of extermination.  Once MosquitoMate has finished all their testing and is proven effective, hopefully they will be able to diminish harmful mosquito populations once and for all.  It would be interesting to read about what benefits mosquitoes bring to nature, and what the side effects of a world without them would be like. 

Waltz, Emily. “US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, www.nature.com/news/us-government-approves-killer-mosquitoes-to-fight-disease-1.22959.