Researchers have completed the first open-air study of genetically engineered mosquitoes in the United States. The results, according to the biotechnology firm running the experiment, are positive. But larger tests are still needed to determine whether the insects can achieve the ultimate goal of suppressing a wild population of potentially virus-carrying mosquitoes.

The experiment has been under way since April 2021 in the Florida Keys, a chain of tropical islands near the southern tip of Florida.

Oxitec researchers collected more than 22,000 eggs from the traps and took them back to their laboratory to hatch under observation. The firm reported that all females that inherited the lethal gene died before reaching adulthood. (Researchers can determine this because mosquitoes carrying the lethal gene fluoresce under certain light.)

Furthermore, the team found that the lethal gene persisted in the wild population for two to three months, or about three generations of mosquito offspring, and then disappeared. No mosquitoes carrying the lethal gene were found beyond 400 metres of the release points, even after several generations. Oxitec monitors the sites for ten weeks after the last lethal gene-carrying mosquito is found.

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