Skip to main content

Cornell University

Public Health News

Sustainability. Equity. Engagement.

Reproduction as the Mosquito’s “Achilles Heel”

This 2006 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP)
James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP
Cornell entomology professor Laura Harrington and molecular biology and genetics professor Mariana Wolfner are studying the mosquito mating process in hopes of discovering a way to control mosquito reproduction. Researchers believe that it could be possible to block a female mosquito’s ability to reproduce, which would provide a new way to fight Zika virus, dengue fever, chikungunya and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Read the full story here.