Verily Life Sciences, an offshoot of Google's parent company Alphabet, is set to release 20 million mosquitoes infected with a naturally occurring bacteria in Fresno, California. The project, named Debug Fresno, aims to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries diseases such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.
The technique does not involve genetic engineering. Instead, male mosquitoes are infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which causes them to produce eggs that do not hatch when they mate with wild females. Over successive generations, the mosquito population is expected to decline sharply.
Debug Fresno is the largest field study of its kind in the United States. It launched on 14 July 2017 and will run for 20 weeks in two 300-acre neighbourhoods. The team will monitor population density and egg hatching, comparing results with two control areas.
Verily is collaborating with MosquitoMate and the Fresno County Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District. Other companies, including Oxitec, are also developing methods to control mosquito populations using sterile males or automated sorting techniques.
