Jan E. Conn (born 1952) is a Canadian geneticist and poet. She resides in Great Barrington, Massachusetts where she does research on mosquito genetics at the Wadsworth Center, Division of Infectious Diseases, New York State Department of Health in Albany, New York. [1] [2] She has also written six books of poetry.
Conn was born in Asbestos, Quebec and moved to Montreal at the age of 17. [3] She received her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Toronto in 1987. [2] She has traveled to Guatemala, Venezuela, Florida, Vermont and Massachusetts, conducting research on insects that transmit pathogens. Before taking up her current work on population genetics of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in South America and Africa, [4] [5] [6] she was a recognized expert on the genetics of Black fly (Simulium) species vectoring river blindness (onchocerciasis) in Central America.
Conn has written several books of poetry, including Jaguar Rain: the Margaret Mee poems, inspired by the diaries and botanical art of Margaret Mee. [7] She has won numerous awards and major travel grants related to poetry, including a CBC Literary Prize, the inaugural P.K. Page Founder’s Award, and a nomination for a Pushcart Prize in 2016. [8] [9] In 1987, her book The Fabulous Disguise of Ourselves was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, as was South of the Tudo Bem Cafe, in 1991. [10]
Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word mosquito is Spanish and Portuguese for little fly. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, one pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and specialized, highly elongated, piercing-sucking mouthparts. All mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers; females of some species have in addition adapted to drink blood. The group diversified during the Cretaceous period. Evolutionary biologists view mosquitoes as micropredators, small animals that parasitise larger ones by drinking their blood without immediately killing them. Medical parasitologists view mosquitoes instead as vectors of disease, carrying protozoan parasites or bacterial or viral pathogens from one host to another.
Anopheles is a genus of mosquito first described by the German entomologist J. W. Meigen in 1818, and are known as nail mosquitoes and marsh mosquitoes. Many such mosquitoes are vectors of the parasite Plasmodium, a genus of protozoans that cause malaria in birds, reptiles, and mammals, including humans. The Anopheles gambiae mosquito is the best-known species of marsh mosquito that transmits the Plasmodium falciparum, which is a malarial parasite deadly to human beings; no other mosquito genus is a vector of human malaria.
Giovanni Battista Grassi was an Italian physician and zoologist, best known for his pioneering works on parasitology, especially on malariology. He was Professor of Comparative Zoology at the University of Catania from 1883, and Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Sapienza University of Rome from 1895 until his death. His first major research on the taxonomy and biology of termites earned him the Royal Society's Darwin Medal in 1896.
A mosquito net is a type of meshed curtain that is circumferentially draped over a bed or a sleeping area to offer the sleeper barrier protection against bites and stings from mosquitos, flies, and other pest insects, and thus against the diseases they may carry. Examples of such preventable insect-borne diseases include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, zika virus, Chagas disease, and various forms of encephalitis, including the West Nile virus.
Deltamethrin is a pyrethroid ester insecticide. Deltamethrin plays a key role in controlling malaria vectors, and is used in the manufacture of long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets; however, resistance of mosquitos and bed bugs to deltamethrin has seen a widespread increase.
The Anopheles gambiae complex consists of at least seven morphologically indistinguishable species of mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles. The complex was recognised in the 1960s and includes the most important vectors of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly of the most dangerous malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. It is one of the most efficient malaria vectors known. The An. gambiae mosquito additionally transmits Wuchereria bancrofti which causes lymphatic filariasis, a symptom of which is elephantiasis.
Avian malaria is a parasitic disease of birds, caused by parasite species belonging to the genera Plasmodium and Hemoproteus. The disease is transmitted by a dipteran vector including mosquitoes in the case of Plasmodium parasites and biting midges for Hemoproteus. The range of symptoms and effects of the parasite on its bird hosts is very wide, from asymptomatic cases to drastic population declines due to the disease, as is the case of the Hawaiian honeycreepers. The diversity of parasites is large, as it is estimated that there are approximately as many parasites as there are species of hosts. As research on human malaria parasites became difficult, Dr. Ross studied avian malaria parasites. Co-speciation and host switching events have contributed to the broad range of hosts that these parasites can infect, causing avian malaria to be a widespread global disease, found everywhere except Antarctica.
A genetically modified (GM) insect is an insect that has been genetically modified, either through mutagenesis, or more precise processes of transgenesis, or cisgenesis. Motivations for using GM insects include biological research purposes and genetic pest management. Genetic pest management capitalizes on recent advances in biotechnology and the growing repertoire of sequenced genomes in order to control pest populations, including insects. Insect genomes can be found in genetic databases such as NCBI, and databases more specific to insects such as FlyBase, VectorBase, and BeetleBase. There is an ongoing initiative started in 2011 to sequence the genomes of 5,000 insects and other arthropods called the i5k. Some Lepidoptera have been genetically modified in nature by the wasp bracovirus.
Anopheles darlingi, the American malaria mosquito, is a species of mosquito in the family Culicidae. A. darlingi is one of the major species of mosquito known to be responsible for malaria in the Amazonian regions. It has a wide range of geographic distribution that stretches from Mexico and Argentina but it has also been found to populate in areas affected by deforestation and environment changes due to humans.
Janet Hemingway is a British infectious diseases specialist. She is the former director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and founding director of the Infection Innovation Consortium and Professor of Tropical Medicine at LSTM. She is currently the president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Anopheles nili is a species of mosquito in the Culicidae family. It comprises the following elements: An. carnevalei, An. nili, An. ovengensis and An. somalicus. The scientific name of this species was first published in 1904 by Theobald. It is the main mosquito species found in the south Cameroon forest zone which bites humans. It is known as a problematic carrier of malaria, although newly discovered, closely related species in the same genus have also been found to interact with A. nili as a disease vector. In that, they both have similar feeding habits on local targets in the Cameroon region.
Anopheles freeborni, commonly known as the western malaria mosquito, is a species of mosquito in the family Culicidae. It is typically found in the western United States and Canada. Adults are brown to black, with yellow-brown hairs and gray-brown stripes on the thorax. Their scaly wings have four dark spots, which are less distinct in the male.
Flaminia Catteruccia is an Italian professor of immunology and infectious disease at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, studying the interactions between malaria and the Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit the parasites.
Dionicia Gamboa is a Peruvian parasitologist and professor at Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt, Cayetano Heredia University. Her research focusses on Plasmodium vivax, a major malaria parasite species in South America.
Anopheles arabiensis is a zoophilic species of mosquito and a vector of disease endemic to Africa.
Nora J. Besansky is an American molecular biologist. She is the Martin J. Gillen Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. In 2020, Besansky was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences for being an expert in the genomics of malaria vectors.
Anopheles sundaicus is a zoophilic mosquito of southeast Asia.
Lisa J. Mirabello is an American medical geneticist who researches genetic susceptibility to pediatric cancer and the genomics of HPV carcinogenicity. She is a senior investigator in the clinical genetics branch at the National Cancer Institute.
Rampa Rattanarithikul is a Thai entomologist and taxonomist. She is a leading expert on mosquitoes, having discovered 24 new species and identifying at least 420 during her career. She was the lead author of the six-volume Illustrated Keys to the Mosquitoes of Thailand. The mosquito species Anopheles rampae and Uranotaenia rampae are named for her.
Abdoulaye Diabaté is an African parasitologist, Professor and Head of the Medical Entomology and Parasitology Department at the Health Sciences Research Institute. His research considers the use of gene drive to eliminate malaria, and he leads Target Malaria Burkina Faso. He delivered the first genetically modified mosquitoes in Africa, marking a historic moment for science. He was awarded the 2023 Falling Walls Science Prize for Science and Innovation Management. In April 2024, he spoke at the TED 2024: The Brave and The Brilliant conference in Vancouver.
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