Modulating malaria with wolbachia

New control strategies for malaria are urgently required. One current area of investigation is blocking the transmission of the malaria parasite through its mosquito vector. Bian et al.¹ highlight the potential use of Wolbachia, symbiotic bacteria that infect insects, in control of malaria transmission. The authors describe the stable establishment of Wolbachia infection in Anopheles stephensi, an important malaria vector, and show that seeding of infected female A. stephensi into a population of uninfected mosquitoes resulted in invasion of Wolbachia into the uninfected population. Moreover, Wolbachia infection rendered A. stephensi refractory to infection with the malaria parasite. We asked four experts to comment on the implications of this study.