Abdoulaye Diabate faced a life-threatening malaria attack when he was just five years old. Diabetes narrowly escaped the mosquito-borne disease, but the three- and four-year-old cousins were not so lucky.
Diabate, who now heads medical entomology and parasitology at the Burkina Faso Health Sciences Research Institute, is developing an innovative technique that could potentially eradicate malaria-spreading mosquito species by altering their genes.
The Burkina Faso-born scientist and professor was awarded the 2023 Falling Walls Science and Innovation Management Award for his research, which organizers said “offers hope for malaria control.”
Diabate was named in September as the only African among 10 global winners of this year’s prestigious award, and was also awarded by the Falling Walls Foundation for “contributing to some of the world’s most advanced work on genetic solutions to malaria.”
The Falling Walls Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting groundbreaking thinking.
Leading cause of death
Malaria is the leading cause of death in Diabate, where nearly all of the West African nation’s 22 million people are at risk of the disease, especially children, according to the World Health Organization.
The latest data from the WHO Africa regional office showed that malaria killed nearly 19,000 people in Burkina Faso in 2021.
The disease is also a leading cause of death in the vast African region, which shoulders the world’s largest malaria burden.
For many years, interventions to control malaria, including the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, have helped reduce transmission and deaths in affected countries.
But in April, the WHO said “malarial deaths remain unacceptably high and cases have continued to rise since 2015,” adding that the rise in infections was due to the rising cost of delivering these interventions, as well as the “biological threats” that enable it. drug resistance and helps vector mosquitoes develop immunity to insecticides.
Malaria killed an estimated 619,000 people worldwide in 2021, according to the latest published data from the WHO.
About 96 percent of these deaths occurred in Africa, the health agency said, adding that 80 percent of casualties on the continent “were among children under 5 years of age.”
Diabate told CNN that improving malaria control tools is the only way to defeat the disease.
“While bed nets do a great job… we now have widespread insecticide resistance in different species of mosquitoes, especially those that spread malaria,” he said.
“This makes it difficult to defeat malaria with these traditional tools. So it is extremely important to innovate and get new tools to complement the existing tools. (Otherwise) we will not be able to beat malaria at all.”
‘Game changer’
Diabate said he was optimistic that the anti-malarial vector control tool, described as “gene drive technology,” could be a “game changer” once it becomes available.
Malaria is transmitted through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes infected with the parasitic disease. Male mosquitoes cannot transmit malaria because they do not bite.
By gene transfer, female mosquito species carrying the disease are prevented from producing new female offspring by releasing genetically modified sterilized males into the environment.
Diabate said the female mosquito population would be depleted and the spread of malaria would be stopped.
“When (gene-edited) mosquitoes are released into the field, they will spread throughout the entire mosquito population and immediately interrupt the spread of malaria,” he said, adding that gene transfer is a more sustainable and budget-friendly malaria control intervention.
“Genetically engineered mosquitoes are the ones that will do the work for you, unlike other (malaria control) interventions where people rush from place to place to make deliveries.
“The good thing about this technology we have developed is that if it works as expected, it will not only be cost-effective, but it will also be sustainable and can be applied to remote and hard-to-reach parts of Africa. We believe that once the technology is ready, we bring it to market and it works as expected, it can be a game changer.” “
But Diabate said it could be several more years before gene drive technology becomes available in Africa.
In 2019, Diabate’s vector control research alliance, Target Malaria, carried out the first phase of the project by releasing Africa’s pioneering group of genetically engineered mosquitoes in Bana, a village in western Burkina Faso.
More than 14,000 male sterile mosquitoes were released on the same day during the controlled release, according to Target Malaria, adding that 527 of the released mosquitoes were recaptured 20 days later.
“While the publication was not intended to impact the spread of malaria, it was a step for the team to gather information, build knowledge and develop local skills,” the research alliance added in a blog post. It provides invaluable information that we are already using in the later stages of our research.”
There are also similar projects targeting mosquito DNA.
In 2013, Oxitec, a US biotechnology company, developed genetically modified mosquitoes that transferred a lethal gene to female strains of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which transmit dengue and Zika viruses as well as yellow fever.
Offspring of gene-modified female mosquitoes die in the larval stage.
In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency also launched an X-ray-assisted technique to sterilize male mosquitoes in Latin America and the Caribbean, aiming to reduce the reproduction of female offspring that transmit Zika.
Diabate’s research appears to be one of the first to use gene editing to target male mosquitoes.
ecological concerns
Health authorities outside Burkina Faso have welcomed Diabate’s gene transfer technology, but questions remain about its impact on the environment once it is fully rolled out.
Lumbani Munthali, program manager for Malawi’s National Malaria Control Program, told CNN that while gene drive technology is “a good innovation that has come at the right time,” its ecological impact is unknown.
“Gene drive technology is about altering genetic materials… so you never know what new vector you will have and what that will mean in terms of the environment or ecology,” he said. “It’s something researchers should look at.”
Germany-based advocacy group Save Our Seeds (SOS) has campaigned strongly against gene drive technology, saying its impact on ecosystems is unpredictable.
“In its statement on its website, SOS stated that every living thing fulfills important duties in its own living space, even if it seems dangerous or harmful to humans. “Therefore, the destruction or even manipulation of one species will have consequences for the entire ecosystem,” he added.
While explaining that mosquitoes are among the main food sources for many animals, such as birds and dragonflies, the advocacy group recalled: “In the Camargue, a nature reserve in southern France, eradication of mosquitoes with a biological insecticide… led to a reduction opened. in terms of the number and diversity of birds and dragonflies.”
Diabate told CNN that “specific concerns” regarding gene drive technology “will be factored into the development process” of the project.
CNN contacted the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for comment on the safety of gene drive technology.
Diabate said he had dedicated his life to fighting malaria and that it had taken a toll on his personal life.
“Malaria has affected every aspect of my personal life: from nearly dying from the disease as a young child to caring for my loved ones every time they got sick. “That’s why I decided to dedicate my life to fighting this disease that hinders the development of Africa and destroys the future of the lives of millions of Africans,” he said.
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