Building a Better Mosquito: Identifying the Genes Enabling Malaria and Dengue Fever Resistance in A. gambiae and A. aegypti Mosquitoes

DOI :

10.3791/233-v

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15:03 min

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July 4th, 2007

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10,677 Views

George Dimopoulos¹

¹Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

Chapters

In this interview, George Dimopoulos focuses on the physiological mechanisms used by mosquitoes to combat Plasmodium falciparum and dengue virus infections. Explanation is given for how key refractory genes, those genes conferring resistance to vector pathogens, are identified in the mosquito and how this knowledge can be used to generate transgenic mosquitoes that are unable to carry the malaria parasite or dengue virus.