The fight against mosquito-borne Dengue fever is ongoing in more than
100 countries all over the world, but in Australia the gloves are off
and researchers are going right for the gonads. Using a bacterial
parasite known as Wolbachia, researchers have found a way to block out
Dengue in mosquitoes, making it impossible for them to transmit it to
humans.
Wolbachia comes in several flavors--almost all of which
manifest themselves in the gonads as well as other organs--but the
particular one researchers have identified here has a unique property:
when an infected male mates with an uninfected female, the female dies.
And when an infected male mates with an infected female, the offspring
live--but they all carry the Wolbachia infection with them, ensuring its
further spread through a population.