Dengue fever is a disease that is asymptomatic or mildly flu-like in the majority of people who get infected with the dengue virus. Those people generally live in tropical areas where mosquitoes spread the virus to anywhere between 50 and 100 million people per year, 12,500 to 25,000 of whom die from severe cases of the disease. In the past few decades, dengue infections have increased dramatically, hypothetically due to global warming and population growth, among other factors.

As you can see on the map above, as of 2006 the southeast coast of the U.S. harbored a species of mosquito able to transmit dengue (cyan), but did not have incidences of the actual dengue virus (red). Fast forward just a few years and the Florida Keys are now seeing cases of dengue fever recurring in the summertime, and the state is worried about the spread of this potentially fatal disease that has no drug or vaccine against it.

Scientists from a British company called Oxitec spoke with NPR after being contacted by Florida health officials because, fascinatingly, Oxitec specializes in developing genetically modified bugs to wipe out other ones that may be killing crops or, in this case, spreading disease. Oxitec has designed sterile male mosquitoes that, when released into a given environment, mate with the females and generate offspring programmed to die. A test of these “GM” (genetically modified) mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands lowered the local mosquito population an astounding 80%.

On the surface, it sounds miraculous that the mosquito population of south Florida could potentially be killed off. I know what it’s like to live there and be tormented by the pests, and the worst I ever got were itchy bumps, not dengue fever. But…as early as elementary school I learned about the food chain, and I know mosquitoes in Florida serve as a huge source of food for many other organisms (e.g., fish, birds, and other insects). A representative from the British non-profit GeneWatch, whose purpose is to monitor genetic technologies, has concerns along those lines and even suggests that other disease-carrying animals could spread new outbreaks in the absence of mosquitoes.

Either way, I think extensive testing and modeling of genetically modified pest control should be done before releasing scientifically altered animals en masse into an any ecosystem. Although, because there is still much governmental debate about how best to regulate the use of genetically modified organisms as environmental tools, Oxitec’s mosquitoes probably won’t be released into the Keys this year. So, my south Florida friends, despite this post’s title, don’t throw out that bug spray just yet.

Interestingly, I almost never read nonfiction. Ninety-nine out of 100 books that I read will be fiction, but this book would have to be that 1 in 100 that isn’t. I am actually reading this book currently, and it’s my own fault for not starting it sooner. I received the book as a gift over a year ago, and I must guiltily admit that I shelved it in favor of my usual fiction…until I saw that it was Amazon’s editors’ pick of the year. But honestly, it shouldn’t have taken that much for me to give the book a try, because the synopsis is as compelling and original as any fiction — except that it’s real, and relevant to my work as a scientist.

This book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who worked tobacco fields in Virginia in the 1930s and 40s. A poor woman with only a middle school education, Henrietta stoically faced a diagnosis of cervical cancer while striving to continue in her role as a wife and mother of five. Little did she or her family know that a sample of her cervical cancer would revolutionize research science by providing the first human cells to ever grow indefinitely in culture – an immortal cell line. Unfortunately, that fact spoke to the aggressiveness of Henrietta’s cancer, which killed her at the young age of 30 in 1951. What her family didn’t know, however, was that the cells of their beloved Henrietta lived on…and on, and on, and on. HeLa (Henrietta Lacks) cells were and still are bought and sold widely within the scientific community and have enabled numerous discoveries, including the polio vaccine and, somewhat ironically, advances in chemotherapy. I entreat you to imagine her family’s surprise and outrage when they finally were informed of all that had been accomplished with Henrietta’s cells – when they themselves were too poor to afford a doctor’s visit. So much more than just a biography, this book has pleasantly surprised me thus far with the honest, candid account that the author gives of her own challenges as an upper-middle class White woman attempting to tease out the details of this sensitive subject from Henrietta’s family and friends.

Some call Henrietta Lacks the most important woman in medical history. What I know is that I can probably get up right now and go find a vial of her cells in some freezer on the very floor where I do my work, as could just about every research scientist. It goes without saying that this is a book that every researcher should read, but anyone who has ever taken their own cells for granted will find this an eye-opening read.