Researchers have equipped a breed of male mosquitoes with genes that are lethal, or at least incapacitating, to their future female offspring, producing a potential curb to the spread of deadly dengue fever.

The researchers describe the construction of their genetically modified males in yesterday’s early edition of PNAS. They engineered their males to carry a female-specific flightless phenotype.

Every year, there are about 50 to 100 million new cases of dengue fever, a potentially fatal viral disease characterized by severe flulike symptoms. Because no vaccine or treatment exists, the best combative strategy is to control the mosquito species that spreads it, Aedes aegypti.

Adult females are the actual biters and transmitters of disease, and a generation of flightless females also won’t be able to attract males without their wing oscillation songs. With this in mind, the researchers’ plan is to distribute tens of thousands of easy-to-carry eggs in disease-troubled regions, notably the tropics. These would hatch genetically modified males which could then act as Trojan horses, breeding with wild females and diluting the gene pool until only wingless females are born (Mother Nature).

The new breed could suppress the local native mosquito population in as little as six months, and (in theory) permanently with enough eggs supplied.

This method promises to be environmentally friendlier than chemical sprays. “This could be the first in a new wave of products that might supplant insecticides,” researcher Anthony James, of the University of California, Irvine, tells Reuters.

“Another attractive feature of this method is that it’s egalitarian: All people in the treated areas are equally protected, regardless of their wealth, power or education,” adds corresponding author Luke Alphey, of the University of Oxford in an ”https://www.uci.edu/features/2010/02/feature_mosquito_100222.php">UC Irvine press release.