Mosquito taste space

Every 2 minutes a child dies from an infected mosquito bite. Most of the mosquito-borne diseases responsible for putting half the world’s population at risk have no vaccine or other means of chemoprophylaxis to provide protection. This means that to prevent mosquito-borne disease transmission we must control the vectors.

The specific need for innovation is to develop a vector control method that targets all disease vectors and is independent of species identity, urban or rural environment, and degree of host and indoor/outdoor biting preference. The overall aim of this study is to identify salient tastants from the natural resources used by mosquitoes, to be developed into baits and repellents, and integrated into existing control tools for integrated mosquito management.

The specific objectives of this study are to 1) identify salient tastants from nectar, mosquito cuticle, skin, blood, urine and breeding sites; 2) describe the molecular mechanism underlying the detection of these tastants by the dengue mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and 3) use this knowledge as a foundation for the rational development of baits and repellents to be used together with existing attractant lures and control agents, e.g., biological, genetic (e.g., RNAi) and chemotoxic substances, in customisable vector control tools. The project is expected to result in a customisable system for integrated vector management, which will be communicated with academic, NGO, governmental and industrial stakeholders.