We may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we?

THEY buzz, they bite, and they cause some of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. Mosquitoes are perhaps the planet’s most universally reviled animals.

- DINO GRANDONI

If we could zap them off the face of the Earth, should we?

The question is no longer hypothetical. In recent years, scientists have devised powerful genetic tools that may be able to eradicate mosquitoes and other pests once and for all.

Now, some doctors and scientists say it is time to take the extraordinary step of unleashing gene editing to suppress mosquitoes and avoid human suffering from malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other serious diseases.

“There are so many lives at stake with malaria that we want to make sure that this technology could be used in the near future,” said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with Target Malaria, a project aiming to target vector mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet the development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence?

Even the famed naturalist EO Wilson once said: “I would gladly throw the switch and be the executioner myself” for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

But some researchers and ethicists warn it may be too dangerous to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. Even irritating, itty-bitty mosquitoes, they say, may have enough inherent value to keep around.

Target Malaria is one of the most ambitious mosquito suppression efforts in the works. Simoni and his colleagues are seeking to diminish populations of mosquitoes in the Anopheles gambiae complex that are responsible for spreading the deadly disease.

In their labs, the scientists have introduced a gene mutation that causes female mosquito offspring to hatch without functional ovaries, rendering them infertile. Male mosquito offspring can carry the gene but remain physically unaffected.