Luz GarcÃa-Longoria Batanete
PhD
RESEARCH Projets
MOSQUITO NATURAL INSECTICIDE
PERU
RNA EXPRESSION
An important problem that nowadays become more evident is vector borne diseases, as for instance WNV. In order to control them is important to develop environmentally friendly insecticides. My group is trying to detect natural insecticides present in some animal components. we are getting interesting results by using mass/gas chromatography.
Our main goal is to prove how deforestation and climate change are provoking an increase in blood parasite prevalence among bird species. Each year we travel to different areas of Peru in order to sample more than 20 endemic bird species and check how the presence of blood parasite increase each year.
This is my newest project. My objective is to detect over and under expressed genes in both mosquito and vertebrate host infected with avian malaria parasites. Which genes are up regulated in the infected mosquitos and why? What about the host bird? Do the parasite change its expression depending on the host species? This project will be done in collaboration with two colleagues: S.Bensch and O. Hellgren (Lund University).
