How the DNA Revolution Is Changing Us
The ability to quickly alter the code of life has given us unprecedented power over the natural world. Should we use it?
If you took a glance around Anthony James’s office, it wouldn’t be hard to guess what he does for a living. The walls are covered with drawings of mosquitoes. Mosquito books line the shelves.
Hanging next to his desk is a banner with renderings of one particular species—Aedes aegypti—in every stage of development, from egg to pupa to fully grown, enlarged to sizes that would even make fans of Jurassic Park blanch. His license plates have a single word on them: AEDES.
“I have been obsessed with mosquitoes for 30 years,” says James, a molecular geneticist at the University of California, Irvine.