the Political Aficionado’s Guide to ... T ECHNOLOGY SUMMER/FALL 2016 INFLUENCE | 29 The best defense against dengue, chikungunya and Zika might come from an unlikely source — a mosquito. For more than a decade Oxitec has found its genetically modified insects have served as an effective mosquito control tool, reducing the population and slowing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. It has worked in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Panama. And now the company is poised to begin its first trial in the United States. “What we’re doing is using the mosquito against itself,” said Hadyn Parry, the chief executive officer of Oxitec, a research firm based in the United Kingdom. In August, the United States Food and Drug Administration published its final finding that releasing the modified mosquito into the wild caused no significant impact to the environment. The finding marked the final regulatory hurdle the company needed to overcome before it could begin a long-awaited trial in Key Haven, about a mile east of Key West. While the idea of genetically modified mosquitoes may send shivers down your spine, these aren’t winged Frankensteins. Instead, the company has modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to include a self-limiting gene. Since 2002, the firm has been perfecting the science of breeding mosquitoes. Bred in a lab, offspring survive because the water is laced with an antidote that blocks the gene. When the non-biting males are released into the wild, they mate with the local female population. Outside of a lab setting, their offspring can’t survive. The mosquitoes also carry a gene that allows researchers to track how many larvae Fighting Zika With a little genetic modification from Oxitec’s laboratory, mosquitoes become their own worst enemy BY JENNA BUZZACCO-FOERSTER PHOTOS: Courtesy Oxitec Dipping into a vat of genetically- modified A. aegypti larvae in the Oxitec lab; the modified larvae glow red under specialized lights.
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