Our Research

We are actively researching new methods to prevent malaria transmission by making mosquitoes themselves resistant to the disease. This resistance can be propagated through mosquito populations using a technology called gene drive. By preventing mosquitoes from spreading malaria, people would be protected from the disease - find out more about this new approach to malaria control below.

What is malaria?

Image by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Malaria

Mosquitoes

Research

Malaria is a disease caused by microscopic Plasmodium parasites that replicate in the blood. It affects over 260 million people, leading to 600,000 deaths every year. Over 90% of cases and deaths are in Africa, and the vast majority of victims are children under age five.

Malaria is spread between people by the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. When a mosquito bites someone with malaria, the mosquito may become infected itself. The parasite reproduces inside the mosquito, and after a few weeks can be transmitted to another person.

Over time, both parasites and mosquitoes are developing resistance to our current malaria interventions, meaning cases have flatlined in recent years, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. We urgently need new tools to stop malaria, and gene drive is a promising new approach.

Our Technology

Gene drive technology is a promising new tool in the fight to eliminate malaria transmission. Transmission Zero develops gene drives that could be deployed to modify specific genes in disease vector populations. Our goal is to render mosquitoes resistant to malaria, so that they would be unable to transmit the deadly parasite to humans. This approach, termed population modification, works by propagating a specific gene through a mosquito population, by ensuring that all offspring carry the specified gene - in this case, a gene that makes mosquitoes resistant to malaria.

It requires a robust molecular mechanism to interfere with parasite development in modified mosquitoes. The propagation of this antimalarial trait by gene drive within large mosquito populations could then reduce or abolish malaria transmission to humans. Gene drive technology is egalitarian since everyone within the protected area is equally protected, irrespective of wealth, ethnicity, gender, or education. It is intended to complement our existing malaria control tools.

Our Method

Making mosquitoes resistant to malaria

We are researching ways to make mosquitoes themselves resistant to malaria infection. We firstly identify ‘effectors’ which have anti-malarial properties and provide these genes to mosquitoes. The resulting genetically modified mosquitoes are able to express the anti-malarial effectors, rendering them resistant to parasite infection.

We are constantly researching and identifying new ways to combat malaria parasites at every stage of their development.

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Propagating malaria resistance (Gene Drive)

Gene Drives propagate specific traits (genes) through a population, by ensuring that all offspring carry the specified gene (as opposed to 50/50 inheritance). A Gene Drive combined with our effector mosquitoes can therefore drive anti-malarial traits through a mosquito population. By making the wider mosquito population resistant to malaria as a result of this intervention, this method is termed ‘population modification’ (or sometimes replacement). People would be protected since the mosquitoes can no longer transmit malaria parasites.

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Testing interventions in the lab

Gene drive research is still in laboratory phases. We have developed a robust platform to test our modified mosquitoes, to establish whether these mosquitoes would be able to transmit malaria, under containment in the lab. Mosquitoes are challenged with both laboratory parasites, and parasites isolated from the field. This ensures that any interventions we develop can be effective against all different types of malaria parasites circulating in our community.

To learn more about our research, please visit the resources page, or refer to our publications below.

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