AMHERST, Mass. – Lili He, professor of food science, was perplexed when the director of the Massachusetts Pesticide Analysis Laboratory (MPAL) asked if the molecular spectroscopy technique she specializes in could be used to figure out the age of mosquitoes.
“My first impression was, what? Why do we have to determine the age of mosquitoes?” recalls He, head of the food science department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
She then learned from John Clark, director of the UMass Amherst-based MPAL, 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.”