Why study disease vectors?
Many infectious diseases are transmitted by insects, and in many cases, there are no vaccines for these diseases. This means that, for many vector-borne diseases, prevention is dependent on vector control. To design more efficient and sustainable vector control strategies we must understand the physiology of the vector, what extrinsic factors impact their development and what other organisms can affect their relationship with the pathogens they carry.
what disease vectors do we study at our lab?
Mosquitoes
At our lab, we study Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are one of the main vectors of dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. This species is distributed worldwide and is characterized by a broad range of natural habitats.
We also study Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles stephensi, the main vectors of malaria in Africa and India. More than 600,000 lives are lost every year because of malaria, and many of these are children. New vector control strategies are desperately needed to change this.
kissing bugs
Kissing bugs, Rhodnius prolixus, are vectors of Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis. It is endemic in Latin America but it can also be found in the United States.
What are our topics of study?
We are working to develop and use new genetic tools to identify sex-dimorphisms and study the molecular pathways involved in their maintenance in non-reproductive tissues, such as fat body, salivary gland, gut, and Malpighian tubes in Aedes aegypti and An. gambiae, as well as in the vector of Chagas disease Rhodnius prolixus, and the vector of Lyme disease Ixodes scapularis.
One of our goals is to identify tissue-specific regulatory elements to build transgenic lines that can serve as appropriate tools to study the molecular pathways that determine female-specific functions in the gut. Our goal is to be able to take this kind of approach and use it to develop markers for sexually dimorphic traits that allow us to focus on understanding how this and other disease vectors have specialized as hematophagous.
A second line of research in our lab is the study of the effects of Juvenile Hormone in the gut after mating. We have identified that JH represses immune genes in the midgut tissue after mating, and the exact mechanisms of how this occurs are the current focus of our research. Additionally, we are investigating if this immune impression occurs in field strains and if it is dependent on the environmentally acquired microbiota. Finally, this immune modulation could have an impact on the susceptibility of the mosquitoes to viral infections, and we are also addressing this question.
The long-term purpose of this research is to identify species-specific targets that can be used in the design of novel vector-control strategies that help in the prevention of vector-borne diseases.