NIH funds mosquito genetics research to curb deadly disease spread

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $2.8 million in grants to researchers at Penn State to tackle the global threat of mosquito-borne diseases. Jason Rasgon, a professor of entomology and disease epidemiology, is leading these efforts to develop new genetic tools that could limit the spread of viruses like dengue, Zika, and malaria.

Mosquito-borne pathogens affect millions of people every year. The World Health Organization reports that half of the global population is at risk of contracting dengue, while malaria continues to claim hundreds of thousands of lives annually across 83 countries. Current prevention methods often fall short when the biological relationships between insects and bacteria break down.

Rasgon’s team is working on two distinct approaches. The first project creates a model system to study and manipulate the symbiosis between mosquitoes and bacteria. By engineering an artificial relationship, researchers can identify the factors that keep these microbes stable within the insect population, potentially creating a way to block virus transmission.

The second grant builds upon the existing ReMOT Control technique, a method previously developed in Rasgon’s lab that delivers CRISPR technology to mosquito ovaries. The goal here is to determine if a virus can serve as a delivery vehicle to introduce specific genetic traits into mosquito populations. These traits could theoretically pass from parents to offspring, providing a long-term method to curb disease spread.

These projects represent a shift toward using modern synthetic biology to address public health challenges. By making genetic manipulation easier and more precise, the research team aims to provide labs globally with the tools needed to investigate these complex biological interactions. If successful, these developments could provide effective, tunable platforms for controlling vector-borne illnesses on a large scale.