Everyone stood in silence, watching the larvae break out of the eggs. They had gone through multiple samples, and this was their final chance. Well, it wasn't, but they wanted it to be.
With increased mining and agricultural activities, aquatic insects that spent years of their larval stage in water were barely making it to adulthood and were gradually going extinct. They had chosen the Hine's emerald dragonfly as their pilot species to breed a new generation with the RDL gene (Resistant to dieldrin) commonly called the fira gene.
Their goal was to encode a subunit of the insect's γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) receptor, which is a critical target for several classes of insecticides. If the amino acid substitution is successful, it would disrupt the insecticide's ability to bind to the receptor and make them resistant.
