Sharon Hill

Post doc/PhD Chemical ecology V building +46 40 41 53 84 +46 762 47 91 75 Fax +46 40 46 19 91 sharon.hill@slu.se

Postal address Dept. of Plant Protection Biology  Box 102 SE-230 53 Alnarp Sweden Visiting address                         Delivery address Sundsvägen 14                           Växtskyddsvägen 3

Education

BA (hon), Queen’s University. 1993
MSc, University of Toronto. 1996
PhD, University of Toronto at Mississauga. 2005

Research projects

I am a vector biologist studying how mosquitoes interact with their environment: specifically, how female mosquitoes find their next blood meal and preferred egg-laying sites. As vectors of diseases like lymphatic filariasis and West Nile Virus, finding out what attracts and repels mosquitoes can help us design traps and repellents to protect people at risk.

Current projects

1. How does a mosquito smell? The identification, isolation and expression of the olfactory receptors from Culex quinquefasciatus.
2. How does a mosquito taste? Molecular, physiological and behavioural forays into taste in Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus.
3. Does a blood meal affect the sensitivity of chemoreceptive sensilla in the mosquito?
4. Butterflies in the stomach: identification of lepidopteran volatiles attractive to mosquitoes.
5. Blood, sweat and tears: vampire moth blood feeding—result of molecular evolution?

Teaching

Neurobiology of insects, (PSL0018)