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Reply to: Assessing the efficiency of Verily’s automated process for production and release of male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes

Nature Biotechnology volume 40, pages 1443–1446 (2022)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 26 May 2022

replying to: Bouyer et al. Nature Biotechnology https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01324-z

We appreciate the comments from Bouyer et al. under their mandate as a United Nations agency program (‘to promote the safe and appropriate use of nuclear techniques and related technologies in food and agriculture’) on our paper1. The centuries-old fight against mosquito-borne disease has entered a new phase that is both exciting and fast-moving. Many promising technologies and techniques have been developed in the past 2 decades, including mosquito colonies stably infected with Wolbachia2, genetically modified sterile mosquitoes3,4, a CRISPR–Cas9-based gene drive5 and even combinations of these techniques with older approaches (that is, irradiated Wolbachia releases6,7). In a world where more than half of all humans are at risk of contracting mosquito-borne diseases across a range of economic and geographic landscapes, we think that an array of tools will be needed to turn the tide against the massive public health burden of these diseases.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Verily Life Sciences, South San Francisco, CA, USA

    Jacob E. Crawford, Kaycie C. Hopkins, Anna Buchman, Tiantian Zha, Paul Howell, Evdoxia Kakani, Johanna R. Ohm, Nigel Snoad, Linus Upson, Peter Massaro & Bradley J. White

  2. Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District, Parlier, CA, USA

    Jodi Holeman & F. Stephen Mulligan

  3. MosquitoMate Inc., Lexington, KY, USA

    Stephen L. Dobson

  4. Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Stephen L. Dobson

Authors
  1. Jacob E. Crawford
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  2. Kaycie C. Hopkins
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  3. Anna Buchman
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  4. Tiantian Zha
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  5. Paul Howell
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  12. Stephen L. Dobson
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  13. F. Stephen Mulligan
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  14. Bradley J. White
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Contributions

J.E.C performed data analysis. J.E.C. and B.J.W. wrote the manuscript with editorial contributions from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jacob E. Crawford or Bradley J. White.

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Competing interests

J.E.C., K.C.H., A.B., T.Z., P.H., J.R.O., E.K., N.S., L.U., P.M. and B.J.W. were paid employees of Verily Life Sciences, a for-profit company developing products for mosquito control, at the time they contributed to this response. S.L.D. was a paid employee of MosquitoMate, a for-profit company developing products for mosquito control, at the time they contributed to this response. S.L.D. and the University of Kentucky Research Foundation hold a patent (US7868222B1) on the use of Wolbachia for mosquito control.

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Crawford, J.E., Hopkins, K.C., Buchman, A. et al. Reply to: Assessing the efficiency of Verily’s automated process for production and release of male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes. Nat Biotechnol 40, 1443–1446 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01325-y

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