By Jamie Perera, Composer & Sound Artist

Target Malaria is a not-for-profit research consortium working to develop an innovative genetic technology to reduce malaria transmission. In 2018, the Target Malaria team at Imperial College London published a landmark paper in Nature Biotechnology which demonstrated how gene drive mosquitoes could successfully suppress a population of wild-type malaria mosquitoes. Last year, the consortium partnered with London-based sound artist and composer, Jamie Perera, to transform data from the gene drive cage trials described in the paper into sound. The resulting piece, called “Swarm, was showcased at this year’s Great Exhibition Road Festival in London. Jamie Perera tells us more about the inspiration and work that went into creating this piece in the blog below.