Scientist have recently engineered a way to have Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes spread malaria resistance instead of disease. Anopheles stephensi are a type of mosquito that makes up twelve percent of the population in India. The scientist have created a “genetic vaccine” using a gene-editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9. CRISPR/Cas9 comes in two parts: a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9, and a strand of RNA that guides the enzyme to the location in the genome to be cut. This gene editing tool will continually inject itself into the mosquitos’ DNA. This vaccine, a gene drive, would allow the mutation to spread to every mosquito in the population in just a few years. Gene drives are engineered pieces of DNA that copy and paste themselves into precise locations in an organism’s genome.“This work suggests that we're a hop, skip and jump away from actual gene drive candidates for eventual release,” says Kevin Esvelt, a synthetic biologist at Harvard University. When testing they found in the first generation that only two of 25,712 larvae screened had the glowing red eyes that indicated they carried the gene drive. However in the third generation 98.9%of the progeny of male mosquitoes descended from the original two males carried the gene drive. So this technique is very efficient except for the females. In most of the offspring descended from daughters of the original male mosquitoes, eye color indicated that Cas9 cut the target DNA but it didn’t actually carry the gene.
The scientists are now working on a new drive that would only activate in males now. Gene drives alone won’t eliminate malaria, but it could help clear the disease and keep it from coming back. Malaria is a serious disease there are an estimated 207 million cases of malaria each year. So finding a way to stop this would be great! It is very important discovery.
I thought that this article was definitely very detailed. It gave me a good understanding of the discovery and how it is done. Even though it was clear and detailed it was dull. I found myself spacing out and rereading over paragraphs. It is a informative article so that it makes sense that the article was not that interesting. But overall it was an cool topic to read about. And it was very informative.
"Mosquitoes Engineered to Zap Ability to Carry Malaria." Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
ReplyDeleteMeagan, this was a very interesting choice for an article! First off, your summary was brief and very easy to read. I also think you did a very good job of explaining the relevance of this article to potentially stopping the spread of malaria from the anopheles stephensi mosquito. Like you said, this could have a huge impact on malaria and potentially drastically decrease the amount of cases in certain parts of the world. Lastly, I think you did a good job critiquing the article. I also sometimes find science articles dull and hard to read, but also extremely informative. It would make science news so much easier to read if it were always very colorful.
While your summary was easy to read, if felt like you were missing pieces from it, so I think it could have been more thorough. I also think you could have explained the experiment more because I am still confused on what CRISPR/Cas9 are. Other than that, your report was very well done.
Malaria is one of the biggest global health issues facing our generation. We have so many methods of prevention, but rarely are they available to those who need them the most. Discoveries like these are key to stopping malaria and have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives every year.
Meagan’s review on the article, “Mosquitoes Engineered to Zap Ability to Carry Malaria” was very clearly and concisely written. Her summary of the article touched on all of the main points, and went into short detail about the gene editing process, which made her review quite informative. Also, her explanation of the article’s relevance to society distinctly stated the importance of injecting the gene editing tool into the mosquitoes’ DNA in order to spread malaria resistance; this will not only eliminate malaria, but it will completely clear the disease and keep it from coming back. Lastly, Meagan’s incorporation of direct quotations from biologists mentioned in the article made her review even stronger by using a professional viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple improvements that can be made to this review. I think that it could be even more informative if she went into greater detail about the positive impact of this process in India specifically, since a large percent of the mosquito population lives there. I also believe that the paragraph on the discovery’s relevance to society could have included more specific details on how the CRISPR/Cas9 procedure will affect the attempt to terminate malaria, and how it compares to processes being used in other countries struggling with this disease.
This article and review actually touched on a topic that I had previously read about, the CRISPR gene editing process, and it was interesting to learn about the different ways in which this tool is used. Not only is it being used to edit pig DNA, but also mosquito DNA. I hope to find even more ways that CRISPR can benefit scientific discoveries in the future.
"Mosquitoes Engineered to Zap Ability to Carry Malaria." Science News. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
ReplyDeleteMeagan,
I thought your review of “Mosquitoes Engineered to Zap Ability to Carry Malaria” was very interesting. Your summary was short and sweet; it had enough information, but not too much that it overwhelms us. I know you said that the article itself was too informative, so it’s much appreciated that you cut that down for us so that we can better understand it. I thought your quote integration from Kevin Esvelt, the synthetic biologist at Harvard University, gave your review more credibility. Lastly and most importantly, you did a great job showing how this new engineering can be impactful to our society when you stated the fact that there had been 207 million cases of malaria each year. Though the explanation was short, we got the gist of it because of that one statistic.
One thing that you could have maybe improved on is having more detail about the actual CRISPR/Cas9 and it’s innovation, as that would have been something interesting to know. Also, maybe you can explain the experiment some more because I’m confused on how the mosquitoes were tested and how the scientists could be sure that the redness of the eye indicated a successful gene drive carriage. Other else than maybe more information, your review was very well-written and interesting to read.
This innovation will be very important in places like India as it can reduce the amount of deaths by malaria. Not only can this save lives, but I thought it was interesting how they thought of the idea of using the mosquitoes to their advantage. This gene-editing tool can be used to eradicate other diseases later on.