Transgenic mosquitoes.

Since we are planning a move to North Carolina I decided to take a few minutes to see what jobs are available at the present. I was searching the job base at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. I came across a Post Doc in Entomology and even know I don't have my PhD. , I thought I might take a look just for kicks and to see what's happening in the Raleigh bug world.

The position was being offered in Dr. Fred Gould's Lab working on engineering a transgenic mosquito that would be used to combat mosquito-borne disease. The plan is to insert a gene that would be later be activated and would prove lethal to the bug. Apparently, this "genetic package" would operate when a promoter was triggered by an environmental response such as day length. Day light hours and temperature commonly effect changes in the insect life-cycle.

Doing a quick search to find a bit more about the subject, I found that another lab is taking a different stab at the transgenic mosquitoe craze. Junitso Ito's lab at Case Western Reserve, Ohio is working to create transgenic skeeters that have antiparasitic genes in their midgut epithelium. These critters get to be carefree and disease-less and live fruitful lives, as long as the technique turns out to be successful. If not, I guess it is back to spraying the shit out of them.

I think I prefer helping the mosquitoes out with these parasites that hitch a ride in them, instead of making them go "pop" after they mate. It just seems harsh to lead them on by letting them go through all the trouble of surviving from larvae stage to adult, mate selection and egg laying for nothing. But either way, transgenic mosquito engineer has to be a pinnacle of uber-geek jobs and I would probably be put myself in que!

Sources:
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu:8050/agcomm/magazine/fall01/cmntysrv.htm
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/gould/
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v417/n6887/abs/417452a_fs.html&dynoptions=doi1022170907
(photo and figure used w/o permission)