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Scientists at the University of California have invented a new technology that helps to stop malaria-spreading Mosquitoes. Ifegenia, which uses CRISPR technology to reduce female Anopheles gambiae, the primary transmitters in Africa.
Malaria is a dangerous disease for ages and leads to death if not cured properly. Malaria is one of the world’s deadliest diseases. Each year hundreds face this infectious disease, with the majority of fatalities occurring in children under five.
It’s not only about Pakistan; worldwide, people face the issue. Recently, The Centres Of Disease Control and Prevention announced that five cases of mosquito-borne Malaria were detected in the United States, four in Florida and one in Texas.
For ages, science has been trying to develop medicines to cure Malaria at an early stage, and it causes death if gets worsens. Therefore, scientists are trying to find safe technologies to stop the transmission of Malaria by genetically transferring the parasites that cause Malaria.
Researchers and scientists at the University of California San Diego, under the supervision of Professor Omer Akbari’s laboratory, have figured out an innovative way to genetically suppress the generation of Anopheles gambiae, the class of mosquitoes that is the leading cause of malaria in Africa.
The new innovative technology targets and kills females of the A.gambiae population when they bite and become a reason to spread the disease.
The first author Andrea Smidler, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences, worked as a team with former master’s students and co-first authors James Pai and Reema Apte, invented a system called Ifegenia, specifically for “inherited female elimination by genetically encoded nucleases to interrupt alleles.”
The new innovative system facilitates the CRISPR technology that helps to kill a gene known as femaleless that kills the sexual development in A.gambiae Mosquitoes.
According to UC Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology scientists, “This technology has the potential to be the safe, controllable, and scalable solution the world urgently needs to eliminate malaria once and for all.”
How Does Ifegenia Work?
Ifegenia works by genetically encoding the two main components of CRISPR within African Mosquitoes. The two main components are the Cas9 nuclease, the molecular “scissors” that make the cuts, and a primary RNA that drives the whole system to the target. The researchers genetically modified two mosquito families to figure out the case expressing Cas9 and the file-focusing guide RNA.
A scientist, Smidler, said, “We crossed them together, and in the offspring, it killed all the female mosquitoes; it was extraordinary.” A.gambiae male Mosquitoes inherit Ifegenia; in contrast, the genetic changes do not directly affect their reproduction ability. They are strong enough to reproduce and spread Ifegenia through mates. As females are removed, their production reaches a dead end. Therefore, parasite growth eventually leads to an end.
Both components are kept apart until the population is ready to be suppressed. Moreover, according to the authors, avoiding some genetic resistance obstacles and keeping a close eye will help to control the problems encountered by other systems.
According to the authors, “We show that Ifegenia males remain reproductively viable, and can load both file mutations and CRISPR machinery to induce file mutations in subsequent generations, resulting in sustained population suppression, through modeling, we demonstrate that iterative releases of non-biting Ifegenia males can act as an effective, confinable, controllable, and safe population suppression and elimination system.”
Though, the old and traditional methods, such as bed nets insecticides, are ineffective and fail to stop the spreading of the disease. Though, insecticides are the only way and are heavily used worldwide to prevent malaria. Smidler, a Ph.D. holder from Harvard University, constantly proves his expertise in genetic technology development to cure the spread of the disease. He says many risks and economic harms are associated with these insecticides. He found the new technology, ‘Ifegenia,’ the most effective and worked as a suppression system.
According to Professor Akbari, “This technology has the potential to be the safe, controllable, and scalable solution the world urgently needs to eliminate malaria once and for all. We must transition our efforts to seek social acceptance, regulatory use authorizations, and funding opportunities to put this system to its ultimate test of suppressing wild malaria-transmitting mosquito populations. We are on the cusp of making a major impact and won’t stop until that’s achieved.”
Alas, the researchers hope that the innovation will help prevent other mosquito diseases such as dengue, yellow fever virus, and chikungunya.
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