Curb the spread of diseases

Juana Díez-Antón

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain

Mosquito-borne viruses, such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and West Nile viruses, cause serious diseases that threaten global health. In recent decades, both the viruses and their vectors, mosquitoes, have spread to new geographical areas and have caused hundreds of millions of infections every year. Today, more than 80 % of the world's population lives in areas at risk of infection, and outbreaks of these diseases have already been reported in European countries. Moreover, the number of these infections is expected to continue to increase in the coming years due to globalisation and climate change.

The spread of these types of virus is based on their ability to replicate in both human and mosquito hosts. In the absence of effective vaccines or antiviral treatments to block their infection in humans, it is essential to identify new strategies to stop their multiplication in mosquitoes and, consequently, their transmission to humans. Up to now, attempts to prevent such transmission have been ineffective and environmentally problematic.

Using the chikungunya virus as a model, the aim of this project is to shed light on the mechanisms that allow viruses to multiply in mosquito cells. The knowledge gained will enable new biological strategies to be developed to control the spread of the virus. The project team will analyse the critical factors that allow high virus replication within the mosquito and will validate these findings in vivo to produce mosquitoes resistant to chikungunya infection.

Systems analyses to stop mosquito-borne virus transmission: from mechanisms to biological control

€430,400.00