UCD Doctoral Student Wins Statewide Entomology Award
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Lisa Reimer and Greg Lanzaro |
DAVIS, CALIF.--A UC Davis doctoral student who researches insecticide resistance in an African malaria mosquito has received a statewide “new investigator” award for her research.
Lisa Reimer, a graduate student in medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro’s vector genetics lab, is the winner of the 2006 William C. Reeves New Investigator Award, sponsored by the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California (MVCAC) and coordinated by the UC Mosquito Research Program.
Reimer received $1,000 at the recent MVCAC conference in Reno. Lanzaro, who directs both the UC Mosquito Research Program, a statewide program affiliated with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the UC Davis Center for Vector-Borne Diseases, presented the award.
The Reeves New Investigator Award memorializes world-renowned medical entomologist William C. Reeves (1916-2004) of the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. It is awarded to the best scientific paper submitted and presented at the annual MVCAC conference.
Reimer is the lead author of a scientific paper published last December in Insect Molecular Biology on the distribution of insecticide resistance genes in Anopheles gambiae. The researchers found that on Bioko Island, located off the west coast of Africa, near Cameroon, subpopulations of A. gambiae exhibit very different levels of resistance in response to pyrethroids, insecticides commonly used to kill mosquitoes.
The article, titled “ An Unusual Distribution of the kdr Gene Among Populations of A. gambiae on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea ,” was co-authored by post-doctorate researchers Frederic Tripet, Michel Slotman, both formerly with the Lanzaro Lab; Andrew Spielman, professor of Tropical Public Health Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health; Etienne Fondjo of National Mala ria Control Program, Cameroon ; and Lanzaro.
“Kdr,” also known as knockdown resistance, refers to a mutation involved in pyrethroid resistance.
“Pyrethroids are the fastest-growing class of insecticides and are used worldwide for both agriculture and vector control,” Reimer said. “The World Health Organization ranks mosquito resistance to insecticides as the most outstanding technical problem impeding the development of vector control programs.”
In 2001, Bioko’s two subpopulations of A. gambiae mosquitoes, the M and S molecular forms, showed no insecticide resistance.
Results showed that insecticide resistance in the M form occurred within two years, “probably in response to intensive and extensive pyrethroid application through insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying,” Reimer said.
What the research means is that “insecticide resistance in a population can occur independently and very quickly in the presence of insecticides,” she said. “This case study emphasizes the integral role of population genetics in not only monitoring and predicting, but also in managing the spread of insecticide resistance for more effective mosquito control.”
Contact:
Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications
UC Mosquito Research Program
Department of Entomology
396 Briggs Hall
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: (530) 754-6894
E-mail: kegarvey@ucdavis.edu
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