Preventing Malaria by Protecting Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes suck. And malaria sucks even more. The disease—caused by the Plasmodium parasite, which is transmitted by mosquitoes—infects more than 300 million people and kills 1.2 million annually. One way to protect humans, though, is to protect the mosquitoes: If they’re not sick, you won’t be either. Researchers are working on two ways to get this done, both using bacteria. (Field tests could be five years away, so keep slapping on the DEET.)

WOLBACHIA
After promising results using mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacterium to reduce Dengue fever, researchers at Michigan State University tried using it to squash Plasmodium too. (Wolbachia amps up the skeeters’ immune systems, blocking out the parasite.) When they injected it into embryos, the resulting mosquito moms passed the bacteria to their spawn, infecting and thus protecting an entire population. That the bugs stayed malaria-free for multiple generations means this could be a one-time, permanent fix. Still to be addressed: The mosquitoes in this study are the kind that live in India, but the biggest malaria problem is in Africa.

PANTOEA AGGLOMERANS
You can tell the mosquitoes that have slurped up a sucrose solution containing a tweaked Pantoea agglomerans bacterium because they glow green. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health genetically modified the germ to release parasite-killing proteins. (They also made it glow.) Almost all of the P. agglomerans–infected bugs were malaria-free, and the suckers in this study (Anopheles gambiae) were indigenous to Africa. Great, right? But Mama Bug doesn’t pass the bacterium to her eggs, so each generation of mosquitoes has to be re-juiced.

- wired.com