Mosquitoes are one of the world’s most deadliest insects, transmitting malaria, a disease that kills between three and five million people each year.

But learning about how a mosquito uses its sense of smell may help researchers develop a new generation of repellants and traps that could save lives.

The Department of Biology at West Virginia University will host Larry Zwiebel, Ph.D., the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Molecular Biology and professor of pharmacy at Vanderbilt University, at 4 p.m., Sept. 8 in room G15 of the Life Sciences Building. It is free and open to the public.

His presentation, “The Genomics and Molecular Biology of Odorant Receptors in the Malaria Vector Mosquito,” will shed light on how over-stimulating the insects’ senses could offer a more effective deterrent than traditional bug sprays.

“This is a species of mosquito that spreads malaria, and the thing that’s so dangerous about them, is that all they want to find are humans,” said Andrew Dacks, assistant professor of biology at WVU.

A mosquito’s sense of smell guides it to its target and plays an important role in host-seeking preference.

“You can be in the middle of a herd of cattle, and one of these mosquitos would make their way past all of the cattle, all of those incredibly potent odors, to find you,” Dacks added.

Zwiebel’s research focuses on combating malaria, among other diseases carried by mosquitoes. Roughly 3.4 billion people are infected each year, according to the World Health Organization.

“(Zwiebel) is considering a global problem. He’s not just working in the lab,” Dacks said.

“He actually has field sites, in Africa, where he has model villages, in which they have standing water to test the effectiveness of their approaches.

“This isn’t a ‘maybe one day this will have an effect.’ That’s not how (Zwiebel) works. He’s actually going into the field, releasing mosquitos within an enclosure and applying these approaches.”

Zwiebel is funded through a number of organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been a faculty member at Vanderbilt University since 1998 and has published more than 50 papers.

For more information, contact Andrew Dacks at 304-293-3205 or amdacks@mail.wvu.edu

-WVU-

ma/09/05/14

CONTACT: Devon Copeland, Director of Marketing and Communication, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
304-293-6867, Devon.Copeland@mail.wvu.edu

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