The Environmental Protection Agency is funding a biotech project to curb mosquito-borne diseases here in the islands.
University of California, San Diego researcher Omar Akbari will travel to Hawaiʻi Island next month to lay the groundwork for a $750,000 project aimed at producing lab-generated sterile mosquitoes of the Aedes aegypti variety.
He hopes to use gene editing to one day knock down their populations in Hawaiʻi. These day-biters are vectors that carry diseases like dengue and Zika. Akbari, a professor of cell and developmental biology, spoke to The Conversation about his research on sterile mosquitoes.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Aug. 5, 2021.
