Red u ce M osqu i to-Bor n e I lln ess

John Overend

It?s happened to all of us: you?re sitting outside on a sum m er night when you feel an itch from a m osquito bite. W hile m osquitoes are a sum m er annoyance to m any, they are also the deadliest anim al on the planet in term s of deaths. M osquitoes kill about 725,000 people through disease every year and infect m illions m ore (Pfizer). Specifically, the species Aedes (Ae.) aegypti, known conventionally as the yellow fever m osquito, is the prim ary spreader of the Zika virus, as well as spreading West Nile virus, chikungunya, dengue, and m ore potentially deadly diseases (Weissm an). Luckily, scientists around the world are m odern biotechnology to elim inate disease-carrying m osquitoes around the world, including Ae. aegypti.

Current practices for m osquito rem oval (pesticides, etc?) are costly, inefficient, dam aging to the environm ent, and also aren? t scalable easily. No m atter how m uch pesticide is deployed in an area, Ae aegypti keep com ing back, as it's im possible to use these chem icals on all of an area?s land area. ?Project Debug?aim s to solve this problem by addressing the growing m osquito population at the source: the m osquitoes them selves.

Researchers at Debug found that they could intentionally infect m ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes with the bacteria Wolbachia, which prevents m osquitoes from m ating (Debug). Additionally, m ale m osquitoes can? t bite or spread diseases

Source: National Park Project

To com bat the spread of Ae. aegypti, Debug infects m ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes with Wolbachia and releases them into the environm ent The m ale m osquitoes seek out the disease-spreading fem ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes and m ate with them , but because of the presence of Wolbachia, their eggs don? t hatch, so the overall Ae aegypti population shrinks Over tim e, with enough sterile m ale m osquitoes, the population of disease-spreading fem ale Ae. aegypti disappears, as only the ?safe?m ale m osquitoes are released (Debug). W hile this technique seem s prom ising, Debug is still working through som e obstacles that inhibit the project?s growth. First, when raising sterile m ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes, they have to be sorted from the fem ale m osquitoes, which is currently an inefficient, laborious m anual process

For the project to succeed globally, m illions of sterile m ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes have to be raised and released, which isn? t possible with current sorting system s. Debug is thus still developing autom atic sorting algorithm s using com plex sensing technology to m ake the sorting process faster.

Unlike the use of pesticides, Debug?s sterile m ales can intuitively find wild Ae. aegypti populations, helping to target those that m ay be m issed by conventional m ethods. Ultim ately, Debug?s use of Wolbachia-infected m ale Ae. aegypti m osquitoes to reduce Ae. aegypti population presents prom ising results, and they can hopefully overcom e the barriers preventing scale

W hile reducing the m osquito population stands as a prom inent m ethod of slowing disease spread, it?s also im portant to address how m osquitoes find their targets in the first place: W hen exposed to CO2 exhaled by hum ans (and other m am m als), the m osquitoes track the gas and use visual, olfactory, and therm al cues to find their target (van Breugel et al.). A team of researchers from the University of Washington used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to m anipulate the visual genes of Ae aegypti (Zhan et al ) CRISPR-Cas9 is a technology that uses targeted RNA and enzym es to edit or delete portions of a subject?s DNA (CRISPR Therapeutics). By deleting two specific genes found in the eyes of Ae aegypti, the researchers were able to prevent the visual seeking of targets when exposed to CO2 (Zhan et al.). The elim ination of visual target apprehension would substantially reduce the m osquito?s ability to detect and bite targets, directly reducing m osquito-caused deaths and lowering Ae aegypti population. It should be noted that while visual sensing is rem oved, gene editing does not affect olfactory or therm al sensing, but these are m uch less useful at a longer range.

M odern biotechnology shows prom ising results when it com es to reducing the prevalence of m osquito-borne illnesses. Specifically, these two studies propose possible solutions to the daunting problem of the Aedes aegypti m osquito, and with m ore research and developm ent, they can put a dent in the 725,000 yearly deaths caused by m osquito-borne illness.

Works Cited

CRISPR Therapeutics. ?CRISPR/Cas9.?CRISPR Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, No date, https://crisprtx.com /gene-editing/crispr-cas9. Accessed 24 October 2022

Debug ?How It Works?Project Debug, Verily Life Sciences LLC, No date, https://debug.com /how/. Accessed 24 October 2022.

Pfizer. ?M osquito as Deadly M enace.?Pfizer, Pfizer, Inc., 4 October 2016, https://www.pfizer.com /news/articles/m osquito as deadly m enace. Accessed 24 October 2022 van Breugel, Floris, et al. ?M osquitoes Use Vision to Associate Odor Plum es with Therm al Targets.?Current Biology, Elsevier, 17 August 2015, https://reader.elsevier.com /reader/sd/pii/S096098221500740X?token=

9D09372C7D5A412DD7FE8F6A7836EC90BD5BECE3417303AAEAFD30158

CCC6307B7A535A261AD494098285943E6A72E04& originRegion=us-east-1 & originCreation=20221024163310. Accessed 24 October 2022.

Weissm an, M ichael. ?M osquito of the M onth: Aedes aegypti? The Yellow Fever M osquito.?Vector Disease Control International, No date, https://www vdci net/blog/m osquito-of-the-m onth-aedes-aegypti-yellow-feverm osquito/. Accessed 24 October 2022.

Zhan, Yinpeng, et al. ?Elim ination of vision-guided target attraction in Aedes aegypti using CRISPR ?Current Biology, Elsevier Inc , 27 Septem ber 2021, https://www.cell.com /current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00958-1. Accessed 24 October 2022