Project Title: Bridging support for An-funestus Research
Project Description: This project will cover the ongoing activities within the VectorSphere on the colonization of Anopheles funestus in Tanzania. Below is the list of the activities which were left from the previous grant and this grant will support all the activities and cover some personnel costs. Continuing efforts on Anopheles funestus colonization 1. Laboratory & insectary maintenance of aquatic and adult progenies of field collected mosquitoes 2. Characterization of survival conditions for the An. funestus mosquitoes... This project will cover the ongoing activities within the VectorSphere on the colonization of Anopheles funestus in Tanzania. Below is the list of the activities which were left from the previous grant and this grant will support all the activities and cover some personnel costs. Continuing efforts on Anopheles funestus colonization 1. Laboratory & insectary maintenance of aquatic and adult progenies of field collected mosquitoes 2. Characterization of survival conditions for the An. funestus mosquitoes in laboratory conditions. Ongoing experiment on mating behaviors of Anopheles funestus in different conditions 3. Field collections of larvae or Anopheles mosquitoes and rearing in semi-field chambers 4. Monitoring the captive mosquitoes for mating indoors and outdoors to determine most suitable settings for reproduction Maintenance and experimentation with the FUMOZ colony of Anopheles funestus at Ifakara laboratory 5. The FUMOZ colony has now been kept for 11 filial generations. We are using the process to gain insights into possible breakthroughs for rearing the Tanzanian strain of Anopheles funestus (FUTAZ) 6. Testing options for cross-mating of FUMOZ and FUTAZ colonies Laboratory screening of Anopheles funestus mosquitoes to support rearing and experimentation 7. All mosquitoes collected from the field are constantly screened to select for Anopheles funestus sensu stricto, which is the species we are attempting to colonize 8. The screening is done using Egg Morphology for common members of An. funestus, but this is verified by PCR on sub-samples. Maintaining essential community relations to support studies on Anopheles funestus 9. Continuing the periodic meetings with local communities in villages where we conduct the field collections 10. Maintaining sentinel stations to target our field collections, and maximize our returns while minimizing collection efforts
Principal Investigator : Fredros Okumu
Department Name : EHES
Time frame: (2019-10-01) - (2024-06-30)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) (Normal)
External Collaborating Partners
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