460 - World Malaria Day: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Malaria, a serious disease caused by the plasmodium pathogen which is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, affects some 228 million people worldwide each year and kills more than 600,000—90% of whom live in Africa. On World Malaria Day, Dr. George Dimopolous of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute talks with Stephanie Desmon about his lab's research into genetically modifying mosquitoes so they can't carry plasmodium—a potential game-changer in the fight against malaria. They also talk about other approaches to controlling and ending malaria, and techniques being used in the US to fight dengue and Zika.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 5 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former |
| 0:19.1 | health commissioner here in Baltimore, Maryland. |
| 0:21.7 | Our goal with this podcast is to bring scientific evidence and experience to shed light on critical |
| 0:27.5 | health issues. If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health |
| 0:33.0 | question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jhhut.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:42.3 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of Public Health On Call. |
| 0:46.1 | Today is World Malaria Day, and Stephanie Desmond talks to George Demopoulos from the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute about his work aimed at preventing illness in mosquitoes instead of humans. |
| 0:58.9 | They discuss how genetically engineered mosquitoes that can't carry the malaria parasite could be a game changer in preventing malaria, which kills 400,000 people a year. |
| 1:09.5 | Let's listen. |
| 1:11.9 | George Demopoulos, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 1:14.9 | Thank you. |
| 1:16.5 | So today I wanted to talk to you about malaria and genetically modified mosquitoes. |
| 1:24.2 | But what I'd really like to start with is if you could sort of remind our listeners of the scope of the problem of malaria and how we've gotten to where we are today. |
| 1:35.5 | Absolutely. Malaria is a disease that is caused by a pathogen called plasmolium, |
| 1:44.0 | and it is transmitted between humans through mosquitoes. that is caused by a pathogen called Plasmodium. |
| 1:48.1 | And it is transmitted between humans through mosquitoes. |
| 1:57.1 | So when a hungry female mosquito has to feed on blood from a human who is malaria infected, |
| 2:04.1 | when it acquires that blood meal, as we call it, it will also become infected with a malaria parasite. And that parasite will then infect the mosquito and develop in the mosquito, and that |
| 2:12.5 | development into an infectious stage will take about two weeks. |
| 2:19.6 | And at that time, the mosquito may want to feed a gallon blood. |
| 2:24.0 | And when it feeds on another human, it will pass on that infectious stage of the parasite |
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