Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that kills millions of people every year. Existing control tools have been insufficient to eliminate the disease in many endemic regions and additional approaches are needed. Novel vector-control strategies using genetic engineering to create malaria-resistant mosquitoes (population modification) can potentially contribute a new set of tools for mosquito control. Here we review the current mosquito control strategies and the development of transgenic mosquitoes expressing anti-parasite effector genes, highlighting the recent improvements in mosquito genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9 as an efficient and adaptable tool for gene-drive systems to effectively spread these genes into mosquito populations.
Part of the book: Mosquito Research