Two genetic engineering technologies are currently being used to modify mosquitoes, and both are in the trial stage. One is a self-limiting technology, which Oxitec uses, where the modified mosquitoes contain a lethal gene that is passed on to offspring to prevent the larvae from developing into adults.nd the self-limiting gene in the lab-grown mosquito is only passed on to another organism through sexual reproduction; a bird, for instance, cannot acquire the gene by eating the bug. “The anti-GM mosquito, sterile-insect people have become a lunatic fringe,” says Miller of UC Riverside.