Bryan Hernandez/20.109/Module 4 Research Proposal

Overview
Making Mosquitoes resistant to Plasmodium dominate population. The project, as proposed, rests on the discovery of greedy gene found in beetles. If the mother beetle contains this gene, then all progeny carry the gene as well. The mechanism for why this occurs is unknown, but the proposed mechanism is that the progeny that do not have the gene die early in the egg and only the ones with the greedy gene survive.

The interesting part of the project integrates this greedy gene into mosquitoes utilizing a gene that gives mosquitoes resistance to Plasmodium the parasite that causes malaria. If we could somehow link this greedy gene to the SPRN6 gene, plasmodium resistance gene, then we would have a made a selectable advantage to having SPRN6. Introducing this mosquito into the wild would hopefully then lead to a mosquito population dominated by those who can't contract the plasmoidium parasite. Without mosquitoes with the plasmoidium parasite, malaria would not be spread.

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