Lili He, professor of food science and former Family Research Scholar 2022-2023, was asked if the molecular spectroscopy technique she specializes in could be used to figure out the age of mosquitoes. She learned that only older mosquitoes infected with pathogens can pass on infectious diseases like the West Nile, Zika and Chikungunya viruses, dengue fever and malaria, when they bite humans and livestock. Mosquitoes can live up to a year. Before they are able to transmit disease, they must live long enough to be infected with a pathogen through a blood meal, survive through the varying incubation period of the pathogen and then pass it on by biting a person or livestock.
“Right now there is no very accurate and also cost-effective way to determine the age of mosquitoes,” He says. “Having that ability will enable quick assessment of the risk of mosquito-borne diseases in a particular area, which will enable rapid and effective mosquito-control strategies.”To tackle the challenge, He has received a five-year, $1.71 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop and test a novel approach to age-grade mosquitoes. Her multidisciplinary team includes experts in analytical development, mosquito biology, biochemistry, field studies and machine learning modeling.
Read the full article here.