Awards

Xiao-Guang Chen, Zetian Lai and Chunmei Wang of Southern Medical University in China and their international partner Guiyun Yan of the University of California, Irvine in the U.S. will develop new traps that are more attractive to malaria vectors. They will incorporate the new traps with infrared vector detection, automatic recording and wireless transmission technologies, and test the efficacy of the new trap and the automated malaria vector surveillance apparatus both in the laboratory and in the field. This novel, real-time malaria vector surveillance tool can help efficiently monitor biting behavior, population abundance and transmission dynamics of malaria vectors, and tremendously enhance malaria transmission surveillance and facilitate the evaluation of new vector control measures targeting outdoor malaria vectors.

Zhang Dongjing, Zheng Xiaoying, Wu Yu and Wang Gang of Sun Yat-sen University in China together with their international partners Badria El-Sayed, Tellal Ageep, Ammar Hassan and Mohamed Korti all from the National Centre for Research in Sudan, and Jeremy Bouyer, Maiga Hamidou, Hanano Yamada and Adly Abdalla of Insect Pest Control Laboratory in Austria will develop highly specific and environmentally friendly Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) to control outdoor Anopheles mosquitoes. Once the feasibility evaluation is passed, the results will form a systematic technical package of SIT to control Anopheles stephensi and provide the scientific basis and technical support for subsequent field trials of SIT to control this outdoor malaria vector in African countries such as Sudan or other Asian countries.

Weiguo Fang of Zhejiang University and Guoding Zhu of Jiangsu Institute of Parasitic Diseases in China together with their international partner Abdoulaye Diabaté of Institut de Recherche en Sciences de La Santé in Burkina Faso, by referring to the widely used small farmer-operated factories for production of entomopathogenic fungal spores in China, will develop a spore production technology for the transgenic Metarhizium strain, which is cost-effective, of low technological bar and can be easily implemented in low-and middle-income countries and regions. A novel bifunctional device will also be provided for outdoor mosquito control. Currently, mycoinsecticides and their release devices are only suitable for indoor mosquito control.

GuoXiong Peng, Yuxian Xia, Yueqing Cao and ZhengBo He of Chongqing University in China together with their international partner Raymond J. St. Leger of the University of Maryland in the U.S. will screen mosquitocidal fungal strains from China and abroad for high-yield virulent and stable production strains against larvae and adults, test the safety of the production strains, optimize solid fermentation medium, fermentation process and the components and proportion in the formulation to develop oil-based fungal mosquitocides for outdoor application. This will help address issues including mosquito resistance and environmental pollution caused by massive use of chemical insecticides.

Biao Jiang, Jianhua Yao, Ping Xing, Jia Li and Wanjun Wang of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences together with their international partners Ole Skovmand and Sérgio Sousa both of Landcent (Europe) B.V. in The Netherlands will utilize in silico screening to discover mosquito insecticide or repellent compounds in traditional Chinese medicine. At least one safe, environmentally friendly and efficient novel mosquito insecticide or repellent insecticide is expected to be obtained, which will then be used to further develop outdoor vector control technology or products. The development of such mosquito insecticides or repellent compounds will help address insecticide resistance issues and accelerate the global malaria elimination process.

Sibao Wang of the Institute for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Duoquan Wang from the China CDC together with their international partners Abdoulaye Diabaté of Institut de Recherche en Sciences de La Santé in Burkina Faso and Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. will develop procedures to efficiently introduce a specific bacterium into field mosquitoes in order to evaluate effectiveness of the bacterium spread through mosquito populations and to block parasite transmission in a more realistic setting. Introducing anti-Plasmodial symbiotic bacteria into mosquito populations can potentially transform mosquitoes into ineffective vectors. This unconventional approach has already shown promise in the laboratory.

Szabolcs Marka of Columbia University in the U.S. will develop acoustic software to locate mosquito swarms by their sound, thereby allowing elimination of thousands of breeding vector mosquitos that can cause diseases such as malaria. They have already demonstrated that they can acoustically detect a single distant mosquito in a noisy laboratory setting. They will further develop acoustic locator hardware and sensors targeting the common malaria mosquito Anopheles and field-test its performance in locating swarms from several tens of meters. By studying the acoustics of single mosquitoes as well as of swarms, it could be possible to track the behavior of individuals and to artificially induce swarm formation, to further support disease control efforts.

Brandyce St. Laurent of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. will test whether cow-baited tents can be used to monitor and control disease-causing mosquitoes in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Most Anopheles mosquitoes preferentially bite animals, but they still contribute to malaria transmission in humans, and many bite outdoors, rendering bednets and indoor repellants useless against them. They will produce low-cost tents treated with insecticide, and locally rent cows as bait. The tents will be set up in both villages and forests and the captured mosquitoes will be analyzed to evaluate the efficacy of their approach.

Brian Foy of Colorado State University in the U.S. will use antibodies that bind essential proteins in the mosquito Anopheles in order to block malaria transmission. They have already produced antibodies that bind conserved mosquito antigens such as the glutamate-gated chloride channel and used them to supplement blood meals, which was lethal to feeding mosquitoes. They will test whether cattle injected with these antigens produce the corresponding antibodies that are also lethal to the mosquitoes that feed off them.

Flaminia Catteruccia of President and Fellows of Harvard College in the U.S. will produce fabrics and nets treated with the dibenzoylhydrazine (DBH) compound methoxyfenozide, which is toxic to malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, to prevent these insects from entering households and spreading disease. The compound is non-toxic to mammals but disrupts steroid signaling pathways in the mosquito, which is a different mechanism than existing insecticides, reducing lifespan and causing sterility. They will combine it with insecticide and evaluate different formulations on geographically diverse mosquito species in the laboratory. The best formulations will then be tested on specific field-collected outdoor mosquito populations from southern Africa.