Eight UC Scientists to Discuss UC Mosquito Research Program Grants

William Reisen

DAVIS--Eight University of California scientists working on grants funded by the UC Mosquito Research Program (UCMRP) will discuss their work at the annual UCMRP Grant Proposal Presentation Day, set Monday, May 8 on the UC Davis campus.

The presentations, keying in on the Culex mosquito, the main carrier or vector of West Nile virus (WNV), will take place from 8 a.m. to noon in the Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) Hall, Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center.

Speakers will be:

• Nancy Beckage, professor of entomology, UC Riverside, speaking on her grant, “Biopesticidal Action of RH-2485 and the Formation Intrepid on Culex Vectors of West Nile Virus Transmission”
• Anthony Cornel , associate professor of entomology at UC Davis, director of the Mosquito Control Research Laboratory, UC Kearney Agricultural Center, Parlier, and associate director of the UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases, “ Development of a Reliable and Sensitive PCR Diagnostic Assay for Detection of Pyrethroid Knock-Down Resistance in Culex pipiens sensu latu”
• Peter Atkinson , professor of entomology, UC Riverside: “ High Frequency Culex Genetic Transformation”
• Sharon Lawler , associate professor of entomology, UC Davis, “ Do Repeated Applications of ULV Pyrenone™ Affect Zooplankton or Aquatic Insects?”
• Aaron Brault, assistant professor, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, two grants, “ Temperature Regulation of Arbovirus Replication: Identification of Eurythermic Determinants of West Nile, St. Louis Encephalitis and Western Equine Encephalitis Viruses” and “Increased Diagnostic Capacity for the Detection of California Mosquito-Borne Viruses”
• William Walton , professor of entomology, UC Riverside, “Efficacy of a Native Biological Agent Against West Nile Vectors Inhabiting Constructed Treatment Wetlands”
• William Reisen, research entomologist and adjunct professor, UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Disease Research and Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, “ Corvid Roosts Affect the Risk of Urban West Nile Virus Transmission in California”
• Guiyun Yan, associate professor, Program in Public Health, College of Health Sciences, UC Irvine, “Ecology and Control of Culex Mosquitoes in Constructed Treatment Wetlands”

California statistics show that WNV killed 18 people in 10 counties in 2005 and infected 929 others from a 40-county range. Five people died in Riverside County; three in Kings County; two each in Fresno and San Bernardino counties; and one each in Butte, Madera, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare counties. In addition, 2005 California statistics reveal 456 horses, 3,046 dead birds, 1,242 mosquito pools and 1,053 sentinel chickens tested positive for the virus.

Sacramento County, the 2005 nation’s “hot spot” for the virus, tallied 175 human illnesses and one death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WNV, first isolated in 1937 in the West Nile District of Uganda, spread to New York in 1999 and reached California in 2002. The virus is “here to stay,” said medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro, director of the UC Mosquito Research Program and director of the UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases.

UCMRP, headquartered at 396 Briggs Hall, UC Davis, is a statewide program established in 1972 by the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR). The statewide programs focus on research and extension in solving priority problems in the management of California agriculture, natural resources, and human development.

Further information on UCMRP is available on the UCMRP Web site at www.ucmrp.ucdavis.edu/research or by contacting administrative assistant Nancy Dullum at (530) 752-6983 or at nadullum[at]ucdavis.edu.