Rearing Anopheles Mosquitoes without Blood for Malaria Research and Control

Objectives

Mosquito rearing in captivity is a major bottleneck and is highly dependent on successfully replicating the mosquito lifecycle, and subsequent use of high blood quantities. The use of blood constitutes a strong drawback due to ethical, financial and logistic issues, mainly when we think about animal welfare and ethics; Right Rules and Responsibilities (RRR) policies; ethical and security implications for the use of human blood and not-the least, the associated cost. New approaches for blood-free-meals that are cheap and of simple and reproducible formulation are a priority to accelerate progress toward malaria eradication.

The goals of this project are to:

1. optimize a blood-free meal that sustains multiple generations of mosquito without loss of fitness relative to colonies maintained on fresh-blood;
2. test the use and sustainability of the blood-free meal to rear different Anopheles spp. and their applicability in various African contexts;
3. prove blood-free system adequacy for sustainable experimental infection with Plasmodium spp.;
4. consolidate a network of insectaries able to develop and implement research on malaria transmission.