The Company That Created The GMO Mosquito Is Now Breeding Mutant Caterpillars

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Video: The Company That Created The GMO Mosquito Is Now Breeding Mutant Caterpillars

Video: The Company That Created The GMO Mosquito Is Now Breeding Mutant Caterpillars
Video: Why Is Florida Releasing 750 Million GMO Mosquitoes? 2024, March
The Company That Created The GMO Mosquito Is Now Breeding Mutant Caterpillars
The Company That Created The GMO Mosquito Is Now Breeding Mutant Caterpillars
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Caterpillars of some moth species are very active and dangerous agricultural pests. However, they are poorly amenable to insecticide treatment. Oxitec, the former creator of GMO mosquitoes, decided to tackle the caterpillar problem

The company that created GMO mosquitoes is now breeding mutant caterpillars - GMO, caterpillars, moths, genetics, agriculture
The company that created GMO mosquitoes is now breeding mutant caterpillars - GMO, caterpillars, moths, genetics, agriculture

British company Oxitec, founded in 2002, previously became famous for creating GMO mosquitoes to combat mosquito populations that carry malaria, Dengue fever and Zika virus.

Their GMO mosquitoes underwent field trials in Brazil a few years ago and have already received permission to do the same. trials in the USA … With the latter, the truth is still difficult, since there are many opponents of GMO insects in the United States.

And yet Oxitec continues its experiments with genetically modified insects. Now they are trying to control the caterpillars of some species of moths, which are common pests on agricultural crops.

Caterpillars of the autumn scoop (corn bollworm) of the species Spodoptera frugiperda, are very common agricultural pests, actively eating corn leaves. The caterpillars are very resistant to insecticides. The company also works with cabbage moth (Plutella xylostella).

Science websites report that Oxitec, in collaboration with an unnamed partner, has begun developing "more effective" methods of dealing with these caterpillars.

They alter the genes of male moths so that when they mate with normal females, they pass these genes to their common offspring. In this case, the females in the offspring should die immediately, and the males will safely turn into adults and then mate with other females.

About half of them will carry GMO genes and pass them on to their offspring, and so on in a circle.

Photo: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture / Flickr

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It is reported that such "pinpoint engineering" will be much less harmful to the ecosystem than the use of insecticides. At the same time, GMO genes in each subsequent generation become less widespread, which does not allow the technology to destroy the entire population.

A technology is also being developed, thanks to which males will also pass on genes to offspring that make the moth less resistant to insecticides, so that in the future moth caterpillars can be poisoned with ordinary chemistry.

The company has already created the first batch of "mutant caterpillars" and began "small field trials" with them in the same Brazil. In 2021, the scale of the tests is hoped to increase after receiving permission from the Brazilian authorities.

Oxitec is facing great resistance from opponents of GMO technology. On their side, the fact that in 2017 their mosquitoes reduced the mosquito population in one of the regions of Brazil so dramatically that in the same year, the number of cases of dengue fever dropped by 91%.

However, what works against them is that there is information about very controversial result trials in Brazil, as well as the fact that so far nothing is known about what happened to the incidence of Dengue fever in subsequent years, whether this did damage the ecosystem, and many other questions.

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