It’s been a long fight, but we may finally have the upper hand against malaria – thanks to advances in genetic technology. Scientists have just made a major breakthrough that could lead to a way to halt the spread of the deadly disease by using genetically modified mosquitoes. This new technique involves using genetic engineering to create a “self-limiting” strain of the mosquito that carries the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. By introducing genes that cause the mosquito to produce proteins that reduce its fertility, the gene-modified mosquitoes are no longer able to reproduce and spread the parasite. This could be a major game-changer in the fight against malaria, which still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.

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source: Phys.org