Salt of the Earth

© 2001 European Molecular Biology Organization EMBO reports vol. 2 | no. 10 | 2001 877 asked. ‘Why would anyone consent to this, and how could a field trial be done without consent of the local population?’ Spielman also noted that 30 years ago when the WHO tried to release sterilised mosquitoes in the Indian countryside, the local population were so suspicious of the project that it was ultimately called off. He is also somewhat cynical about the funding of genetic engineering; he believes that’s where the money is currently for research, which has attracted researchers, but that it is little more than a passing fad. ‘My biggest concern in working with the genome of these vectors is that parasites have a genome, too; who’s to say that the parasite won’t be able to mutate in response to a changing host genome?’ asked Bruce Christensen. Most researchers in the area are examining the response of the vector to the parasite, but fewer are looking at the parasite’s response to the vector, which he believes is an area worthy of attention. ‘There’s been a lot of co-evolution between the two organisms, with different strains developing in different areas’, Christensen said. ‘We are a long way from impacting vector-borne infections, but I’m the last to say it won’t work’, he added.