USA TODAY
On Thursday morning, workers from a British company placed basketball-size cardboard boxes into six yards in the Florida Keys.
Then they added water.
In a week or so, 12,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes will – one by one – begin buzzing out of each box, the first genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in the United States.
Local officials argue the trial is necessary at a time when pesticides are increasingly ineffective against these dangerous pests. A 2016 vote on the project indicated a solid majority of support in most of the surrounding counties. At the end of the day, our hope is to be able to control this mosquito more efficiently and keep our population below any sort of disease transmission threshold, said Andrea Leal, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito District. Our toolbox for Aedes aegypti control is shrinking, unfortunately, and that s making us think outside of the box.
Designed To Die : Florida Releasing Thousands Of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes To Combat Disease-Carrying Species
KEY POINTS
These mosquitoes were genetically modified to create offspring designed to die before reaching adulthood
The state has also previously used other novel means to control the disease-carrying mosquito population
Florida is set to release thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes this week in its bid to control the spread of one of the disease-carrying species.
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) and U.K.-based Oxitec will kick off the project aimed at releasing 144,000 non-biting male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the coming weeks. The Aedes aegypti mosquito makes up about four percent of the mosquito population in the Keys but is responsible for virtually all mosquito-borne diseases transmitted to humans, the FMKCD said in an earlier
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Emory and NIH continue public-private partnership advancing Alzheimer’s research
The National Institutes of Health is launching the next version of AMP AD (Accelerating Medicines Partnership Alzheimer’s Disease), a public-private partnership that takes an open science, big data approach to identifying biological targets for therapeutic intervention.
The National Institute on Aging will lead research efforts for AMP AD 2.0 and has pledged to contribute $61.4 million over five years. This includes funding six multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary academic research teams, including the team at Goizueta Alzheimer’s Research Center at Emory University, along with a data coordinating center at Sage Bionetworks.
Emory researchers served as a founding academic team for the first iteration of the AMP AD when the initiative began in 2014. Led by Allan Levey and Nicholas T. Seyfried, Emory investigators will play an integral role in AMP AD 2.0 as it seeks to support new technologies,