A few scientists at the Arizona University have achived the mosquitoes that are totally 100 percent resistant to the malaria parasite. They have successfully bred this kind of genetically engineered mosquitoes. And the great thing about this mosquitoes are that, they are incapable of infecting humans with malaria.

For hundreds of years, researchers from around the world are trying to alter the mosquitoes, which cannot infect the humans with malaria. infect, all those attempts were not useful because still mosquitoes are capable of transmitting the diseases causing pathogens called Plasmodium. Each year around 250 Million ppl gets infected by the malaria, and about 1 Million people gets die. There is not any effective malaria vaccines are available. A mosquito belonging to the genus Anopheles is able to act as vector. Around 25 of anopheles are significant vectors of this disease.

The previous attemps were only to the around 97 percent of destroying the malaria parasite in mosquitoes bodies, but the rest of the 3 percents were about which was itching to the scientists. Michael Riehle is the scientist, who has come up with this new study, and he has also covered thoose 3 percent and succed and altered the whole genetic material that is resistant of malaria parasite by 100 percent.

The genetic material designed by the Riehle's team, [Michael Riehle is a professor of entomology in UA's college of agriculture and life sciences and is a member of the BIO5 Institute.] that inserts itself into a mosquito's genome. Then after researchers fed malaria infested blood to the modified mosquitoes, the Plasmodium parasites didn't infect a single animal in the study. And once the anti malaria molecule is injected  into the mosquito's eggs, the next generation then carries the altered genes and passes it on to future generations. The scientist used Anopheles stephensi. This is the mosquito species that is very important malaria vector throughout the indian subcontinent.

The one major thing found in this study is that, this anti-malaria molecule shorterns the mosquito's total life span. The typical life span of a mosquito is around 2 to 3 weeks, but this gets minimize due to the anti malaria molecule. The good thing about this manner is that, The malaria parasite needs around 12 to 16 dayz to develope within a mosquito, before it get transmitted to the human body. And due to the minimize of mosquito lifespan, the chances of transmittion of parasite gets lesser. As mainly the oldest mosquitoes [Anopheles] are only responsible for the transmission of parasite.

The researchers targeted one of the biochemical pathway, specifically, they modified a piece of genetic code acting as a molecular switch in the complex control of metabolic functions inside the cell. The genetic construc acts as it always set to ON, which leads to the permanent activity  of a signaling enzyme called Akt. Akt functions as a messenger molecule in several metabolic functions. It includes the larval development, immune response and mainly the lifespan. The article was published on 15 July at Public Library of Science Pathogens.

According to Riehel, The completely eradicating of malaria parasite requires 3 things as below:
The ability to engineer the mosquito, finding genes or molecules that can kill the malaria parasite, and giving the modified mosquitoes a compititive advantage so they can actively replace the wild population.
The third thing is a major hurdle. A lot of researches is being done now to give the mosquitoes fitness advantages so that they can replace the wild populations. But it is probably may take a dicade to replace of the whole population of mosquitos to control malaria.

The main problem with this way is that, if some of the parasites slip through the mechanism, then the next generation will likely be resistant to it.

Now, the genetically engineered mosquitoes are now studied in the lab environment, and as the way to replace the wild mosquitos populations will found, then it will be tried with the natural population.

And if this approach gets succeeds, then malaria could be a disease of the past.