Chemistry Kills Babies?

Or at least nano particles may be linked to killing or lead to the deformation of mosquito larvae. Mosquitoes, in addition to being pests in the summer months, can harbor serious and fatal disease around the world. According to the WHO, malaria, a tropical disease cause by a protozoa carried by the vector of the anopheles mosquito, has the potential to inflict half the world's population and infects hundreds of millions each year (WHO World Malaria Report, 2012). In addition to malaria, other disease such as filariasis and West Nile (which occasionally pops up in the US--last summer a few cases were spotted in New York City) are especially fatal to small children who have not yet developed a fully functioning immune system. 

While there are a few major vaccine prototypes being developed for the use against malaria, most are not effective enough to be distributed and endorsed as a fully preventative routine(the protozoa that causes malaria adapts quickly when in the bloodstream, rapidely gaining immunity to different medications and treatments). Physical barriers such as bed-nets, while at first effective, are again not fully preventative against these vector borne (insect-borne) diseases. The article I found addresses an alternate solution to combat the issue of mosquitos by attempting to kill the larvae of mosquito and thus preventing birth of new mosquitos and thus the transmission of said disease. This method would be ideal as it deals with the mode of transmission for these tropical disease instead of the microbe itself, eliminating the problem of an adapting protozoa.

One article addresses the use of effects of silver nano-particles on filariasis(Bharathidasan University), while the other focuses on carbon nano-particles of malaria carrying mosquitoes(The Bengal Engineering and Science University). The chemistry and theory  behind the two articles are roughly the same, so I will be citing both as examples (although more is known about the silver interaction than the carbon ones). The basic idea is to add these nanoparticles to still bodies of water where mosquitoes thrive and breed, which will in turn decrease the successful breeding of mosquitoes. Since one is to be careful about adding any substances to the environment (for reasons of biomagnification-how the additive will be laced through the entire food chain), the long term effects of these additives must be fully explored before any wide-spread implementation of the results is carried out. The Bengal Engineering and Science University attempted to reconcile this problem by adding microbes (the best cited example as A. bisporsis) to the silver nanoparticles which has been shown to stabilize the nanoparticles and reduce the emission of silver ions.

The results of the studies found reduced successful breeding as suggested by wing abnormalities and more commonly(Bengal Study), the death of larvae(Bengal and Bharathidasan studies). While the article does not mention specifically why these additives stunt larvae development, it is essential to remember that at the base of replication are proteins responsible for every feature and cell developed. As the ions and nanoparticles may be charged or change the pH, even if slightly, during the process of protein synthesis, the result could be a faulty protein that eventually leads to a faulty organism. It was also found that the carbon nano-particles remained in the water for an extended period of time, suggesting the procedure would be more long-term and thus more cost efficient for countries that are worried about the cost of tropical disease prevention. Further research is essential to tackle these specifics.

This article is interesting as it shows how the different areas of science must interact in order to create lasting solutions to difficult problems. Here, chemistry, biochemistry, ecology, and many more areas of study are all forced to work together. This also provides a unique and alternate solution to an issue that has been affecting humans for thousands of years.

Main Articles:
http://www.apjtcm.com/zz/20133/2.pdf

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/09/nanoparticles-stop-mosquitoes-breeding


Notes: Most of the background of this article, mainly in the first section, is considered common knowledge in the field of malaria study. Links that encompass this information are included as
    http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2012/en/index.html

Toxicity of Nanoparticles-Ions
    http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es8026314

Submitted by: Trishna Desai