An adult Aedes aegypti mosquito emerges from its pupal case.OXITECLast week (October 5), the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will assume responsibility for overseeing the approval and use of mosquitoes genetically engineered to act as pesticides, specifically, a variety of Aedes aegypti generated by UK company Oxitec. This regulatory change could lead to pilot releases of the mosquitoes in the U.S. sometime in the next year.
“We hope within the next three to six months we will get regulatory permission to go ahead [with] releases of our mosquitoes in the U.S,” says Derric Nimmo, a scientist at Oxitec.
“Aedes aegypti transmit dengue, Zika, and other viral diseases,” explains North Carolina State University entomologist Fred Gould. Because vaccine development has thus far been challenging and the available dengue vaccine is only partially effective, the current strategy for combatting these diseases is insect control, which includes spraying millions of dollars worth of insecticides. As an alternative, biotech firms have been working on developing tools like the genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes and mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium that can disrupt virus transmission from mosquito to human. “You need to come at it from ...
