“The Role of Abathur (the Third Life) in the Mandaean Story of Creation.”

Genetic engineering may one day turn the Anopheles mosquito, the transmitter of malaria, into a natural 'flying vaccinator' for the disease, a new study in Insect Molecular Biology suggests.

Scientists have successfully generated a transgenic mosquito expressing the Leishmania vaccine within its saliva. Bites from the insect succeeded in raising antibodies, indicating successful immunization with the vaccine through blood feeding.

The research, led by Associate Professor Shigeto Yoshida from the Jichi Medical University in Japan, targets the saliva gland of the mosquitoes, the main vectors of human malaria.

Early last month, the now-famous paper by Dr Andrew Wakefield that supposedly linked vaccines to the onset of Autism, was formally retracted by the Lancet, the journal that published it back in 1998. This was a monumental decision, considering it was the conclusions drawn from this paper that launched the firestorm of debate around the safety of vaccines, and likely the cause of the current vaccine crisis.