• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Mosquitoes Carrying Genetically-Engineered Parasites Could Be Used To Immunize People Against Malaria

November 23, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Mosquitos get a bad rep – and for good reason. Not only can these flying insects leave a nasty bite, they are responsible for transmitting the parasite that causes malaria. However, if new research is anything to go by, mosquitoes may also provide a creative solution to the disease.

By infecting mosquitoes with a genetically engineered version of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum, researchers developed a novel vaccination strategy that uses living insects to immunize people against the disease. So far, it has proven to be highly effective with initial trials suggesting almost 90 percent of participants exposed to the modified parasite successfully avoided developing malaria. 

Advertisement

Typically, when a person is infected with Plasmodium falciparum, the parasites make their way to the liver. From there, they infect red blood cells. For this study, researchers modified two sets of parasites – one group (GA1) had been engineered to cease developing after approximately 24 hours of entering the human body; the other (GA2) was designed to stop developing approximately 6 days after infection. In contrast to the first group, the latter group (GA2) was able to develop into the liver stage.  

Participants were assigned to three groups – GA1, GA2 and placebo. After receiving bites from mosquitoes carrying modified parasites, participants were exposed to mosquitoes carrying non-modified parasites. Those in the placebo group only received bites from mozzies carrying the non-modified versions. While all of those in the placebo group went on to develop malaria and all but one (87 percent) of those in the GA1 group contracted the disease, an encouraging 89 percent (8 out of 9) of those in the GA2 group did not.

“These findings represent a significant step forward in malaria vaccine development,” Julius Hafalla, an immunologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who was not involved in the study, told Nature.

“The ongoing global malaria burden makes the development of more effective vaccines a critical priority.”

Advertisement

Malaria is a global health problem that stretches back centuries, affecting the Ancient Egyptians. While incidence in the US is incredibly low, there were approximately 249 million cases in 2022 according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Of those infected, 608,000 died. Most of these cases occur in Africa, which accounts for 94 percent of incidents.

Currently, there are two vaccines that have been approved for preventing malaria. However, they are far from perfect, being only around 75 percent effective. Plus there is a need for regular booster shots.

Hence the need for alternatives. However, while the results published appear extremely promising, the trials carried out so far have been tiny. Much larger trials are needed before these mozzie vaccines can be adopted on a larger scale.

This study is published in the journal The New England Journal of Medicine. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Two UK tech figures plan to row the Atlantic for charity supporting minority entrepreneurs
  2. Microsoft now more focused on ‘killing Zoom’ than Slack, says Stewart Butterfield
  3. Taiwan central bank says currency stable, flags more modest intervention
  4. Growing Bones And Gut Feelings: The Latest Steps On The Quest To Map Every Human Cell

Source Link: Mosquitoes Carrying Genetically-Engineered Parasites Could Be Used To Immunize People Against Malaria

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Reindeer Bring A Gift Greater Than Any Of Santa’s – Hope Of A Stable Climate
  • If Deep-Sea Pressure Can Crush A Human Body, How Do Deep-Sea Creatures Not Implode?
  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • The Hole In The Ozone Layer Is Healing And On Track For Full Recovery In The 21st Century, Thanks To Science
  • First Sweet Potato Genome Reveals They’re Hybrids With A Puzzling Past And 6 Sets Of Chromosomes
  • Why Is The Top Of Canada So Sparsely Populated? Meet The “Canadian Shield”
  • Humans Are In The Middle Of “A Great Evolutionary Transition”, New Paper Claims
  • Why Do Some Toilets Have Two Flush Buttons?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version