Towards the Mosquito Tricorder: One Stop Determination of Species, Age, Infection Status, and Pathogen Identification Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Mid-infrared spectroscopy is a sensitive, information-rich, field deployable measurement technology, and has been effectively used across many scientific fields. The signals measured with infrared spectroscopy (near- and mid-range) are derived from the absorption of infrared light by molecules, resulting in an increased vibrational energy of the molecules. The wavelengths of the absorbed infrared light are a function of the structure of the molecules in the sample. Additionally, the number of absorption signals that result from a compound are on the order of 3N, where N is the number atoms in a molecule. The combination of these two governing ideas of infrared spectroscopy results in a unique spectral "fingerprint" of a sample (biological or otherwise) that can be used to discriminate it from other samples. MIR spectroscopy has been successfully used to identify and differentiate organisms ranging from bacteria to mosquitoes, identify bacterial infection within hosts, and classify disease states in hosts. A similar approach, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), has had some success in determining mosquito species, age, and infection status with malaria. MIRS may be even more accurate than NIRS, and our prior work has demonstrated the ability of MIRS to rapidly identify species from a single segment of the hindleg with 98% confidence. We would like to extend our initial findings on species identification by addressing two specific aims. Specific Aim 1 (SA1) will assess the ability of MIRS to determine infection status and pathogen identity, and Specific Aim 2 (SA2) will build on previous work to improve the determination of adult mosquito vector chronological age and gonotrophic stage.

date/time interval

  • January 2022 - December 2022