Thanks for sharing! This seems like good news, and I’m glad they’re looking at safety issues along so many different axes.
However, I’m a bit confused as to what interventions like this are meant/expected to accomplish. It seems like the long-term result of this kind of intervention would be a recovery of the mosquito population as the modified mosqs’ descendents got outcompeted by mosquitos without the genes.
Is the idea that mosquito populations are small enough (relative to the number of modified ones introduced) that they might be eradicated entirely, to lower populations temporarily during a high-disease-risk period, or to hopefully end up in an evolutionary equilibrium with fewer a. aegypti (e.g. if other mosquito species that carry less diseases can move in on their niche while the population is low)?
Thanks for sharing! This seems like good news, and I’m glad they’re looking at safety issues along so many different axes.
However, I’m a bit confused as to what interventions like this are meant/expected to accomplish. It seems like the long-term result of this kind of intervention would be a recovery of the mosquito population as the modified mosqs’ descendents got outcompeted by mosquitos without the genes.
Is the idea that mosquito populations are small enough (relative to the number of modified ones introduced) that they might be eradicated entirely, to lower populations temporarily during a high-disease-risk period, or to hopefully end up in an evolutionary equilibrium with fewer a. aegypti (e.g. if other mosquito species that carry less diseases can move in on their niche while the population is low)?
Ashwin,
Oxitec takes the following strategy:
Issue repeated releases of large numbers of male transgenic mosquitoes over 4-6 months to suppress the mosquito population to very low levels.
Issue repeated releases of lower numbers of male mosquitoes after that to prevent resurgence of the mosquito population.
See this video, starting from 4:50:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XGcYoeHMMY#t=4m50s
Avi