It seems that a budding project in the works within the newly created Alphabet, Google's parent company, would be M, for mosquito. A senior executive has expressed a desire to genetically engineer mosquitoes in a bed to eradicate diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
Linus Upson, a top honcho for Google's Chrome division has told co-workers of his desire to tinker with mosquitoes as reported by The Information recently. Google is known for encouraging such initiatives within the framework of its research philosophy, which focuses on doing research that has never done before, not just to improve Google products, but also advance scientific knowledge, according to its website. The mosquito project has the potential to join the Google X life-sciences unit.
The details about this project are still unclear and sources, which include co-workers at Google, say that the biological project is at the proposal stage. Upson reportedly wants to undertake his project within Google in order to have a bigger impact and without the pressure of generating quick financial return, Business Insider learned. However, one of the speculated methodology involves the release of a genetically engineered male with defective gene so that its offspring would not reach adulthood. George Church, a leading geneticist at Harvard University, was already consulted by Upson and Alphabet chief Larry Page, according to Re/code.
Alphabet's mosquito project has a potential rival in the form of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which allocated at least $2 billion to projects and initiatives addressing the global malaria problem. If Alphabet approves Upson's brainchild, it "would be leaping head-long into a truly awesome space race toward ridding the world of some of its most deadly disease," Silicon Beat noted.
