Undergraduate and graduate Environmental Health (EH) students are assisting this summer in performing CDC bottle bioassays for a mosquito laboratory research project led by Dr. Stephanie Richards as the principal investigator. During the latter part of May 2016, the research team started conducting the bioassays and other related laboratory activities, such as rearing mosquitoes of various species and coating glass bottles with several active ingredients found in insecticides. This nationwide research project, a collaboration between the ECU Environmental Health Sciences program, Bayer Crop Science, and various vector control programs in different states, will be conducted May to November 2016 to determine the susceptibility of different mosquito populations to certain active ingredients in insecticides. Findings of this study will determine the necessity of insecticide resistance testing and surveillance as important methods used by mosquito control agencies to ensure that the most effective treatments are being used for suppressing target mosquito populations.
Check out the video on the EH students’ laboratory research experience!
