Community approaches to preventing mosquito-borne viruses

Description

The ACCE DTP is committed to recruiting extraordinary future scientists regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, faith or religious belief, pregnancy or maternity, parental or caring responsibilities or career pathway to date. We understand that a student’s potential can be shown in many ways and we strive to recruit students from all backgrounds, and support them on their scientific journey.

We have designed our application systems to identify candidates who are likely to be successful in research regardless of what opportunities may have been available to them prior to their application.

Various support and guidance on applying for an ACCE DTP studentship, including how to apply; what we’re looking for (including our assessment rubric); details of financial support, training, and placement opportunities available; and details of our recruitment process, can be found at https://accedtp.ac.uk, in the ‘prospective applicants’ tab.

Project overview

Background to project:

The UK is increasingly under threat from mosquito-borne diseases. In recent years two species (Aedes albopictus and Culex modestus) have invaded southeast England, and a Culex-borne virus (Usutu) has been detected in London and outside London. Usutu virus and the closely-related West Nile virus are circulating in neighbouring countries in mainland Europe. Significant research is underway to assess the risk presented to the UK from indigenous and exotic mosquitoes as vectors of viruses, and how this risk is expected to change with climate and environmental change. This project will investigate how people in the UK might mitigate the risk by taking action in their own gardens – removing the sites in which Culex mosquitoes breed.

Mosquitoes lay eggs in water and the juvenile stages are aquatic. It takes about a week for mosquito eggs to hatch and so, by covering outdoors water containers permanently or emptying them weekly, the mosquito breeding cycle is interrupted.

This project will investigate whether community willingness to control mosquitoes and its effectiveness in an urban region of the UK – Liverpool City and Birkenhead. A questionnaire survey will be used to ascertain the people’s attitude to, and knowledge of, mosquitoes in the UK. The region will be surveyed and households recruited to the study. For one summer we will implement controls in the households’ gardens and monitor the impact on mosquitoes; for a second summer we will monitor mosquitoes while the community undertake control.

Objectives

Year 1: Undertake questionnaire-based survey. Survey urban environments around Merseyside for Cx pipiens. Recruit 60 households for further studies. Record breeding sites

Year 2: In 60 households, trap Cx pipiens for 3 nights per week over 10 weeks during summer. For half (i) remove all accessible breeding sites in the garden such as rain-filled buckets/pots etc; (ii) tightly cover water butts or treat to prevent mosquito breeding.

Year 3: For the 30 untreated sites, trial owners’ ability to control Culex pipiens. Owners will be given guidance on how to control Cx pipiens, we sample weekly, as per year 2.

This project is novel because while there has been significant research on the genetics, ecology and vector competence of Cx pipiens in the UK, there has been no research on its control. This project is potentially impactful, if it is shown that community-level control of breeding sites can impact on mosquito abundance,

This project is timely as, historically, the UK has not been considered at risk of mosquito-borne viruses but this is rapidly changing, with invasive species and a virus (Usutu) being transmitted in central London. The threat is growing rapidly and the UK urgently needs options for control in advance of a disease outbreak.

This project is supervised by Professor Matthew Baylis (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/infection-veterinary-and-ecological-sciences/staff/matthew-baylis/; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0335-187X; https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oYV3xGgAAAAJ&hl=en

; X - @baylism) and Dr Marcus Blagrove (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/infection-veterinary-and-ecological-sciences/staff/marcus-blagrove/; https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Cq_VhJkAAAAJ; ). It is supported by the Pandemic Institute: https://www.thepandemicinstitute.org/

If interested, please send questions to baylism@liverpool.ac.uk and grte0276@liverpool.ac.uk.

Essential and desirable criteria

Essential

• Background in life sciences

Desirable

• Knowledge of entomology

How to apply

Notes and details of how to apply are available here: https://accedtp.ac.uk/phd-opportunities/

All applicants to ACCE must complete the ACCE personal statement proforma. This is instead of a personal/supporting statement or cover letter. The proforma is designed to standardise this part of the application to minimise the difference between those who are given support and those who are not. Candidates should also submit a CV and the contact details of 2 referees.

Part-time study options

All ACCE PhDs are available as part time or full time, with part time being a minimum of 50% of full time. Please discuss potential part time arrangements with the primary supervisor before applying to the programme.

Project CASE status

This project is a CASE project. Your project will be co-supervised by the non-academic partner organisation, and you will spend 3-6 months on a placement with your CASE partner in their workplace. You will experience training, facilities and expertise not available in an academic setting, and will build business and research collaborations. Your CASE partner will also contribute an additional £1000 per year to your Research and Training Support Grant.