From UC San Diego
February 11, 2021
Despite the broad notoriety of sharks, snakes, scorpions and other formidable creatures, mosquitoes remain the deadliest animal on the planet… by far. Mosquito-transmitted malaria remains the number one worldwide killer among vector-borne diseases, claiming more than 400,000 human lives in 2019.
In order to engineer advanced forms of defense against malaria transmission, including targeted CRISPR and gene drive-based strategies, scientists require intricate knowledge of the genomes of vector mosquitoes.