Our Crowdfunding Groups
Each year mosquitoes infect hundreds of millions of people with a variety of debilitating illnesses (e.g., malaria, dengue fever, West Nile fever, yellow fever, Chikungunya fever) leading to over 500,000 deaths. Zika virus is the most recent mosquito-borne disease to take the world by storm. Although not as deadly of a disease as malaria, Zika infection has been linked to devastating birth defects in newborns (e.g., microcephaly) and a rare disorder of the immune system (Guillan-Barre syndrome). Vaccines and therapeutics to prevent and treat Zika and many other mosquito-borne diseases are not available. Thus, the only universal avenue for limiting their spread is to control the mosquitoes that transmit the diseases.
We are an integrative team of students and researchers in the Department of Entomology at the Ohio State University attempting to 1) better understand the biology of mosquitoes to identify new mechanisms for disrupting the mosquito life cycle, 2) discover and develop effective, environmentally-friendly insecticides for mosquito control with novel mechanisms of action, and 3) monitor mosquito populations and the diseases they harbor to reveal what mosquito-borne threats are lurking, identify where mosquito control efforts need to be focused, and prepare for the next emerging mosquito-borne threat to public health.
We ask for you to please join our team and support the efforts of our student researchers who are working towards better mosquito control. Your generous donation will provide key supplies, materials, and reagents necessary for students to advance their work. Please check back for updates on their projects and thank you for your support!
Fun fact: Some mosquitoes lay dozens of individual eggs one at a time near or on a stagnant body of water. With this donation level, we can purchase basic supplies for maintaining colonies of mosquitoes we use in laboratory experiments (e.g., cages, sugar, cotton, netting).
Fun fact: Some mosquitoes lay eggs in large clusters that stick together and float on the surface of water. With this donation level, we can purchase basic supplies needed for setting mosquito traps at our field sites (e.g., batteries to operate traps, dry ice for generating carbon dioxide).
Fun fact: Mosquito larvae are juveniles that develop in stagnant water. They feed on microorganisms and organic matter. With this donation level, we can purchase animal blood from a supplier that we use to feed our mosquito colony and conduct experiments.
Fun fact: Once mosquito larvae grow large enough they transform into a pupa where they undergo metamorphosis into an adult mosquito. With this donation level, we can purchase fuel that is need to transport lab personnel and mosquito personnel to our field sites where we are trapping mosquitoes.
Fun fact: Adult male mosquitoes fly but do not feed on human blood or transmit disease. They only consume plant nectar. With this donation level, we can purchase mosquito traps that are needed for collecting mosquitoes from our field sites.
Fun fact: Adult female mosquitoes are the only life stage that feeds on human blood and transmits diseases. They need our blood to produce their eggs. With this donation level, we can purchase reagents and materials needed for conducting insecticide efficacy experiments on larval and adult mosquitoes.
Fun fact: When mosquito feed on your blood they can ingest 2-3 times their own body mass in blood! Not so fun fact: When mosquitoes are feeding on you they also urinate on you! With this donation level, we can purchase supplies and materials needed for molecular biology experiments in which we are attempting to understand how certain genes play key roles in the biology of mosquitoes.
Fun fact: Some mosquitoes mate in swarms of thousands of individuals. Males are attracted to 'love songs' produced by the beating wings of females. With this donation level, we can purchase supplies and reagents that are necessary for testing mosquitoes captured in the field for the presence of infectious viruses (e.g., Zika, West Nile, dengue).
