Research

Revealing how mosquitoes home in on people

Among the most devastating infectious diseases worldwide are insect-borne diseases that are spread by mosquitoes. One such mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti, is of particular concern because it spreads the viruses that cause diseases such as dengue and Zika, which affect millions of people each year. To home in on people for blood meals, female mosquitoes use multisensory integration. They sense the CO2 from our breath, which then causes them to pay attention to other host cues, such as human odors and the images of humans.

Suppressing mosquito populations

To suppress populations of invasive mosquitoes that spread pathogens that cause disease, we are devising methods to improve the sterile insect technique (SIT). SIT involves the release of large excesses of sterile males. Since females mate only once, if the sterile males mate first, this would render the females sterile. We are devising ways to increase the mating competitiveness of sterile males, to improve the efficacy of the sterile insect technique.

Developing improved insect repellents

The gold standard repellent, DEET, was commercialized in the late 1950s. While it remains the best repellent, it has limitations. It lasts only 4-5 hours, there are safety concerns, damages many types of synthetic materials, and has an unpleasant greasy feel and odor. We are developing improved repellents that address each of these limitations.

Mosquito mating

We characterizing the sensory mechanisms for mating in mosquitoes. We created deaf Aedes aegypti and discovered that hearing is absolutely required for males to mate.

Hearing is essential so that males can hear the female wing beat.  We are continuing to characterize mechanisms involved in mosquito mating behavior, which could have important implications for improving the sterile insect technique (SIT) to suppress mosquito populations.

Mosquito vision

When mosquitoes are exposed to CO2 from our breath, they start paying attention to other host cues, including the image of people. Using CRISPR, we have engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that are no longer able to see their hosts.

Mosquito taste

When female mosquitoes land on our skin, they sample the chemicals on our skin before deciding whether to take a blood meal or fly away. We are characterize the cellular and molecular mechanisms that mosquitoes use to taste chemicals on human skin.

Mosquito hearing

We have used CRISPR to create deaf mosquitoes, by eliminating a TRP channel required for audition, and found that deaf males will not mate. This is because they cannot hear the sound of the female wing beat. We are currently characterizing the role of hearing for mating by female mosquitoes.