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Biopesticide holds potential for stopping spread of malaria

This 2014 photo made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a feeding female Anopheles funestus mosquito. The species is a known vector for the parasitic disease malaria. (James Gathany/CDC via AP)
James Gathany/AP
/
CDC
This 2014 photo made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a feeding female Anopheles funestus mosquito. The species is a known vector for the parasitic disease malaria. (James Gathany/CDC via AP)

Mosquitoes kill more humans than any other foe. They spread many deadly diseases, including malaria, which each year infects about 250 million people in dozens of countries. And each year 600,000 people die from malaria, most of them children in Africa.

What if there were a way to make mosquitoes ineffective with the help of bacteria? Scientists at the Malaria Research Institute at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health say they’ve made a breakthrough to do just that.

We speak with George Dimopoulos, PhD, a mosquito-vector biologist and professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Bloomberg School.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Maureen Harvie is Senior Supervising Producer for On the Record. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and joined WYPR in 2014 as an intern for the newsroom. Whether coordinating live election night coverage, capturing the sounds of a roller derby scrimmage, interviewing veterans, or booking local authors, she is always on the lookout for the next story.