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Asked by anon-181151 to Claire on 8 Jun 2018.
Question: Could there be a way to stop mosquitoes from being so aggresive
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Claire Donald answered on 8 Jun 2018:
Hi Henners1014
That would be great wouldn’t it! Most of the work that is going on is trying to stop the spread of viruses rather than stopping mosquitoes biting. We can change a number of mosquito genes in order to stop them spreading viruses but so far these genes are mostly linked to immunity rather than behaviour. If we can switch on genes that make them more resistant to viruses that will stop them spreading the virus when they bite you. Having said that, not all species of mosquitoes bite, so if we can find the genes that tell them to bite we can maybe turn them off and that would stop them being such a pest when we go on holiday!
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Hannah commented on :
Mosquitoes are just doing what they have to do to survive – it’s in their nature to bite warm-blooded creatures, so you’d need to do some serious experimentation and genetic engineering to change that. This is why most work on preventing diseases spread by mosquitoes looks at other ways of stopping them, like vaccines against the diseases they carry. It’s quite difficult to engineer behavioural traits/activities (e.g. engineering mice to make them wave at people) because there are some many genes involved, and lots are also involved in other processes.