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Can entomopathogenic fungi be used to produce a cheap organic pesticide for sustainable malaria control?
Malaria control has been successfully achieved with insecticides directed against blood-fed mosquitoes resting on house walls. However, the evolution of insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes, and concerns about the environmental consequences of sustained use of chemicals, make standard approaches unsustainable. We hope to develop an approach which overcomes both these problems.
Group members involved: Simon Blanford
Collaborators: Matt Thomas (The Thomas Lab)
Abstract of Wellcome Trust Project grant which is funding this work (written in 2002):
Novel use of fungal entomopathogens for malaria control
Use of entomopathogens for mosquito biocontrol
has had limited success. Limited ecological thinking and technical constraints, in particular, have hampered development
of biopesticides for control of adults. However, recent advances in production and formulation technology have increased
the scope for use of Deuteromycete entomopathogenic fungi as oil-based biopesticides. Using Anopheles stephensi and
rodent malaria as a model system, and integrating empirical and theoretical approaches from fundamental ecology and
agricultural pest control, the current project aims to investigate the potential of this new technology for development
of a biopesticide for malaria control. We adopt a novel approach examining mixtures of fungal isolates and exploring
effects of infection on vector capacity and not simply vector mortality. The ability of what might be quite avirulent
pathogens to influence vector capacity has been virtually ignored, yet subtle effects of sub-lethal infection on, for
example, feeding behaviour, flight potential, thermal behaviour and immune response are common in other host-pathogen
systems and could have significant effects on vector capacity and malaria dynamics. This, coupled with a novel pathogen
delivery system infecting resting mosquitoes via residual pick-up of spores from surfaces treated with the oil-based
formulation, creates exciting new opportunities for sustainable malaria control.
Photo courtesy of Edinburgh Research and Innovation Ltd.