Mosquitoes With Lethal Genes to Help Brazil Fight Dengue - Bloomberg

Mosquitoes With Lethal Genes to Help Brazil Fight Dengue - Bloomberg: "Some of the mosquitoes he saw “were like aliens -- I’ve never seen them that big before,” said the 32-year-old Londoner, who attended three games in Brazil before his England team was sent packing. Brazil’s stepped up spraying of insecticides didn’t seem to help matters.

Now Brazil is developing a more powerful weapon that may be ready when it hosts the 2016 Summer Olympics: genetically modified mosquitoes that self-destruct before doing any damage.

Brazil will probably be the first country to approve large-scale releases of male mosquitoes with a lethal gene that causes their offspring to die before reaching adulthood, according to Hadyn Parry, chief executive officer of Oxitec Ltd., a U.K. biotechnology company that has developed the technology."



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