Source: NCSU COLLEGE OF AG & LIFE SCIENCES, 8/6/20


Scientists have long had a name for a gruesome insect that feeds on live flesh of warm-blooded mammals: C. hominivorax, Latin for “man eater.” But now, they have the parasite’s number.

In a paper published this week in the journal Communications Biology, researchers from across the United States and beyond describe the assembly and analysis of the New World screwworm’s genome — a map of the fly’s 534 million DNA base pairs.

Max Scott, a North Carolina State University professor of entomology, is the lead author of the study. He said the research not only sheds light on the insect’s biology and evolution, it also identifies genes that could be targeted to develop control measures that are less expensive than the sterile insect technique that now keeps the insect out of North America.

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