Max Andersson

Hello there! My name is Max, and I am currently a PhD student with the Disease Vector Group at the Department of Plant Protection Biology here on Campus Alnarp. Below you can read more about my research, but a little bit about me is that I am a Swede born in Skåne and raised in Blekinge by the coast. When I am not working on my research, I either tinker or ride my bikes, of which I have acquired several and which are of great importance in my life. I also read a lot of books, magazines, popular science, etcetera. 

My current research focuses on the functional genomics and deorphanisation of odorant receptors (ORs) in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae and dengue fever vector Aedes Aegypti, which are two prolific disease vectors spreading pathogens that kill millions of people every year, most prominently in Africa.

Functional genomics and deorphanisation entail finding salient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are emanating from various resources that are of interest to the mosquito and matching these with cognate OR and therefore the function of the receptor. For example, the mosquito needs sugars to have the energy to fly and so needs to find nectar from flowers. For this time in their life cycle, they need to be able to respond to VOCs that are emitted by flowers/plants, and so these receptors are upregulated. When they have enough energy, the females seek humans or other vertebrates to find an adequate host to take a blood meal from. At this stage, the floral sensing receptors are downregulated, and host-seeking receptors are upregulated. When the female has managed to find a blood meal, she needs to find a proper place to lay her eggs in a safe environment, and so receptors tuned for these specific VOCs are upregulated.

The methodology we utilise is based on electrophysiology, specifically single sensillum recordings (SSR). This method allows us to measure the depolarisation events happening in the olfactory sensory neurons (OSN), which express the ORs mentioned previously, following stimulation with the VOCs from the resources. We elute the VOCs for stimulation over the antennae using a gas chromatograph, which is an instrument that allows us to know exactly which compound comes out at a certain time point.

Instead of working directly on the mosquitoes themselves, since their life cycles are disadvantageous to our experiments, we work on transgenic flies. We express the mosquito ORs in the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster. By deleting the endogenous OR, we can replace this with an exogenous OR of our choosing through something called the empty neuron system.

This research will hopefully give us further understanding of the function of the various ORs in these disease vectors and, in the future, a better understanding of mosquitoes' attraction to their resources like humans and by this reducing the spread of disease.

Highlighted in bold are important words and concepts if you would like to read more about what I do :)

As a doctoral student, I am a member of the PhD or Doctoral Student Council. At this council, I have two main responsibilities, one as a representative for and member of the Faculty board (LTV faculty) as well as the representative of the other doctoral students at my department's board.