Sibylle,

in first place, I guess it will depend on the mosquito species being more or less focussed on CO2 as an orientation cue. In case it is not so and specific odors are the key cues mediating orientation, this would probably not be so effective. CO2 is considered a more or less "universal" cue for hematophagous insects when it comes to host orientation, but its relative "weight" is not always the same.

Nevertheless, I really hope this works for Anopheles gambiae and, if that is the case, that they make it freely and easily available for the millions of people exposed to malaria transmission by this species.

It might work if coupled with most attractive human odour ... to fool mosquitoes.

I dont think mosquitoes are that fool !!!

I'm all in favour of new technologies for prevention of mosquito biting but having done a bit of background reading, this is one for the rich and reliable. The Olfactor Labs product currently sells for/costs $10 US for a five patch pack, each of which lasts just 48 hours. Given that the average tourist to the tropics currently does not reliably use their malaria prophylaxis or their insect repellent, will they remember to replace, or even use, their patches?

I know the price is going to come down and the technology improve as more are sold but to suggest that this is going to be the answer to vector borne disease for the local inhabitants of tropical countries, where the average income rarely exceeds $2 US per day, is somewhere in cloud cuckoo land.

Even long lasting impregnated bed nets did not take off at first because most rural Africans did not consider Anopheles mosquitoes to be a nuisance (they mostly have quite "gentle" bites compared with most culicines) and the association of mosquito with malaria is a hard concept to get across to people with relatively minimal education. It was only when the word got around that treated bed nets stopped or inhibited bed bug biting that people really took to them - bed bugs are a terrible nuisance in some rural communities.

So, while this development is promising in many ways, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to have an effect - similar claims have been made for other technologies, even repellent releasing wristbands and so on, but none of them have been found as effective over a whole body as initially claimed. This technology works differently but it is the "wear-out" factor that is the primary issue as patch replacement in the long term is going to be the main practical and logistical issue in its success. If they can develop one that lasts a month I think it might work out but given the volatility of the active substances I suspect that is unlikely.

Ian,

thanks for your reply, I agree with the points you raised. I just want to mention that my comment, which might have sounded confuse in relation to hopes, was directed to the same point you highlighted: for it to become a needed tool for the most serious problems caused by mosquitoes around the world it would need to be almost freely available, which is clearly not the case if one considers the figures you mentioned. Not to mention that it still needs to be proven effective against those mosquitoes, as I understand.

Well, thank folks for thinking about the issue, I was actually not so much thinking of a probably market succes or say, in terms of 'will the people use it even if the costs are too high.... I do believe that this issue can be dealt with (if it really works) by WHO or the B&M Gates Foundation or others uch sponsors. The same did happen with the mentioned impregnated bet nets (took about 10 years for the message distributed everywhere and the acceptance in the populations).

No, my questions was really on the issue, whether it would work (similar to : would a wristband work?) or not.......

sibylle

Sibylle

Sorry for misinterpreting your question, although I think to some extent both Marcelo and I have addressed the point.

If we look at wristbands, because we know a lot more about them, there are two real problems: a) the release characteristics of the volatile material from a passive object (band or patch) can be variable according to environmental conditions of temperature and humidity and even positioning on the body; b) the "exposure" of the mosquitoes to the vapour would depend to some extent on the activity of the individual wearing the product.

So if you are staying quite still I doubt you would be enveloped by a cloud of vapour and if you are moving quickly you would leave it behind you.

Of course it also depends upon the mosquito species you are avoiding. I can see that perhaps for Anopheles gambiae and Culex quinquefasciatus, that have similar biting habits at night the effect could be similar, although the fact that both prefer to bite between foot and knee levels may require the patch to be worn lower down on the body. However, for Aedes aegypti, which is mainly day biting and to some extent uses visual cues to find hosts, it may not work as well, especially as the mosquitoes like to land on clothing and then slowly walk up to an appropriately exposed piece of skin. I suspect that vaporisers inside sleeping rooms will prove a more reliable method of deterring mosquitoes as that does not depend upon human behaviour to the same degree. Only time,and presumably extensive field tests, will tell.

Ian, thank you for consideration. Are you aware of the field study (design), the company is currently carrying out, presumably in Uganda (I read about this somewhere, may be on their homepage ...?). We seem to be helping them developing a good product by discussing it ...... ;-) (which certianly is not a bad idea all together ....).

cerainly no idea is badbut hardly very few survive with actual test in future. Mosquitoes arrive onn the stage of this word.much earlier than men. They are better adapted thanmen. and the find new ways and avenues to survive...God save mosquitoes

We are going to be working on the production of ethyl pyruvate using synthetic biology to target this problem of mosquito bites, as part of our project for iGEM 2015. Ethyl pyruvate is known to disrupt the cpA neuron in mosquitoes. Do follow our page (iGEM IIT Delhi 2015) that will be coming up in a while (hopefully within the next 2 months).

Kshitij,

thanks for the info. Would you kindly share the literature showing that ethyl piruvate has such an effect, please? I would really appreciate having access to it, as I am not aware about and it sounds very promising.

Thanks in advance,

Marcelo

Marcelo,

I'll be glad to share the info I have regarding this. Here are some research papers relevant to the work I plan to do..

"Ultra-prolonged activation of CO2-sensing neurons disorients mosquitoes

Stephanie Lynn Turner,1,2 Nan Li,1,3 Tom Guda,4 John Githure,4 Ring T. Cardé,3 and Anandasankar Ray2,3" (Link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150595/)

And about the effect of ethyl pyruvate on mosquitoes,

"Targeting a dual detector of skin and CO2 to modify mosquito host seeking.

(PMID:24315103 PMCID:pmc3899525)" (Link http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc3899525)

There isn't a lot of literature on this topic yet, but hopefully, if this works out, we should be seeing some further research in this matter soon.

Hope this helps.