microbiology and molecular genetics (recorded in 2008) Listen or
download interview (mp3, 30 minutes, 29MB) As the son of an
African-American man and an Irish-American woman in 1950s
America, Anthony James came up against considerable odds. But
his family's commitment to education and his own conviction—born
of witnessing the dramatic impact of Jonas Salk’s polio
vaccine—that science could help solve some of the world’s
problems buoyed him and ultimately led him to the University of
California, Irvine and a doctorate in molecular biology. After
straying from his first love, animal genetics, into DNA
recombination research and then back to animals, James merged
the disciplines to take on one very serious world problem:
mosquito-borne diseases, which kill millions of people each
year. He is now best known for his work to genetically engineer
mosquitoes that can't transmit malaria, dengue fever and similar
diseases. Drawing from their studies of the genetic makeup of
mosquitoes in the lab and James' expertise in