SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
(Imitating mosquitoes). Half a million mosquitoes are going to be set free in the Washington, D.C., area this summer, but these are the kind of mosquitoes you just might want buzzing around. They're male mosquitoes infected with a bacteria that prevents eggs from hatching. Large releases of these mosquitoes in parts of Singapore have brought populations down by 90%. Stephen Dobson is an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and the CEO of MosquitoMate, a lab that creates them. And he joins us now from that lab in Lexington, Kentucky. Thanks so much for being with us.
STEPHEN DOBSON: Thank you. Great to be here.
SIMON: So what do you do? You just tell these mosquitoes, go at each other?
DOBSON: Millions of years has taught them exactly what to do.
SIMON: And what happens?
DOBSON: The males fly around. They don't drink blood. It's just the females that drink blood. They use the protein from blood to make eggs. Males don't make eggs. They do a little pollination, along with finding females. They mate with them, and then those females become sterile.
SIMON: How did you develop these mosquitoes?
DOBSON: Well, they were developed back around 2005. This was at the University of Kentucky, in my laboratory. And basically, this is a naturally occurring bacterium named Wolbachia. We moved it from one mosquito by using small needles. We pulled the egg yolk out of one mosquito egg and injected it into another.
SIMON: Forgive me - I have to stop you there because you say that as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Like, how big are the needles, or how small are they?
DOBSON: Microscopic. It would be hard enough to do it with a chicken egg, but yeah, imagine doing this with an egg that you have to have under 40x magnification.
SIMON: My memory of Kentucky is that it's a mosquito haven. I just wonder if they ever buzz close to you and somebody says, stay away from that guy.
DOBSON: Yes. We do have these mosquitoes. They're very common. They're the ones that kind of buzz around your ankles. They're black-and-white striped. In Kentucky and D.C., where you're located, these are invasive species. The tiger mosquito is the one that's the biggest problem. It was not in the United States prior to 1985. And so that's a question that we commonly get - by removing these mosquitoes, are we somehow negatively affecting the ecosystem? And the answer is we're actually taking it back to a more natural state prior to the introduction of these mosquitoes.
SIMON: Who buys these mosquitoes?
DOBSON: We are currently providing mosquitoes to private pest control operators. So these are people who would come to your backyard in the D.C. area. And then we're also providing mosquitoes to abatement districts. These are municipal districts in Florida and California where tax dollars are paying for mosquito control.
SIMON: And what are the benefits of this approach?
DOBSON: One nice thing is that this is a species-specific approach. So instead of a broad-spectrum chemical that can affect bees or butterflies or beneficial insects, these males - they're only looking for females of the same species. Another advantage is there's no known resistance. Currently, we've been forced to reuse the same chemicals for decades. As a result of that, many of these mosquito populations have developed resistance against these chemicals.
SIMON: How long does it take to get results?
DOBSON: We're basically impacting the next generation. You would not see a reduction in your yard for several weeks. When those eggs fail to hatch, your population is going to go down.
SIMON: Professor Stephen Dobson, who is an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and CEO of MosquitoMate. Thanks very much for being with us.
DOBSON: Thank you. It was a pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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