To Fight Malaria, Scientists Try Genetic Engineering To Wipe Out Mosquitoes
"It's a cold, damp fall day in London. But in a windowless basement laboratory, it
feels like the tropics. It's hot and humid. That's to keep the mosquitoes happy."
"'In this cage, we have the adult mosquitoes,' says Andrew Hammond, a genetic engineer at Imperial College London, as he picks up a container made out of white mosquito netting."
"The lab is buzzing with hundreds of mosquitoes. "Everything in this cubicle is genetically modified," Hammond says, pointing to the container of mosquitoes."
"Scientists have altered mosquitoes' genes before. But these insects aren't just any genetically engineered mosquitoes."
"What makes these insects unusual is the way Hammond and his colleagues are modifying them. They're using a particularly potent type of genetic engineering called a "gene drive." These are sequences of DNA produced in the laboratory that defy the usual rules of genetics."