UC San Diego Researchers Develop Effective Technology to Suppress Malaria-Spreading Mosquitoes

Scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed a new technology to suppress the mosquitoes that primarily spread malaria in Africa. Malaria is one of the world’s deadliest diseases, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, with the majority occurring in children under five. The new system, called Ifegenia, leverages the CRISPR technology to disrupt a gene in mosquitoes known as femaleless (fle), which controls sexual development and the ability to spread the disease. The system kills female mosquitoes while allowing males to remain reproductively fit, leading to population suppression and eventual elimination of the parasite’s spread. The researchers believe that Ifegenia has the potential to be a safe, scalable solution for eliminating malaria and could be adapted for other species that transmit deadly diseases. The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.