Mosquitoes are responsible of spreading illnesses such as dengue, malaria and Japanese encephalitis. However, current methods of using chemical pesticides are non-specific in target. Adding further to the problem, over 90 percent of insecticides spread goes to waste as they fail to kill the targets and are subsequently absorbed by the environment instead. Continuation of this kind of practice may trigger ecological and environmental crisis in the future, therefore, a new approach is needed. To rid mosquitoes in an efficient and environmental-friendly way, we have come up with the Mosquito Intelligent Terminator.

The Mosquito Intelligent Terminator is a strain of E. coli that secretes crystal proteins, targetting the wrigglers, larvae of mosquitoes. These crystal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis are toxic to certain types of mosquitoes only, addressing the problem of specificity. Next, in order to make an environmentally friendly insecticide our design also incorporates a genetic circuit controlling the expression level of cry protein and the population size of E. coli, thus a surplus will never exist as population is self-maintained in this system.

In summary, the Mosquito Intelligent Terminator is designed and optimized to be an ecological and environmental friendly mosquito pesticide.

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