Supervisor: Matthew DeGennaro, PhD
Project 1: Understanding vector ecology, arbovirus infectious rates & insecticide resistance to optimize mosquito control
Specific Aim 2: Determine how novel vector control tools can be used in conjunction with currently used methods to improve integrated vector control strategies for urban environments.

Dr. André Luis da Costa da Silva is a postdoctoral fellow at Florida International University (FIU) in the Laboratory of Tropical Genetics advised by Dr. Matthew DeGennaro. André became interested in biology as a high school student and pursued a bachelor’s degree at University of Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, Brazil. During an opportunity as an undergraduate researcher, he became interested in studying mosquitoes, specifically the population genetics of Aedes aegypti.

André soon graduated and began studies at the University of São Paulo for his PhD in the Institute of Biomedical sciences program Biology of Host-Pathogen Interactions. His graduate researcher focused on differential gene expression and identification of tissue-specific promoters in Ae. aegypti mosquitoes. André also studied transgenesis technology in mosquitoes. After his PhD, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of São Paulo studying mosquito and virus interaction focusing on Ae. aegypti, Zika and Chikungunya. In an area of Brazil where Chikungunya was endemic they found that Ae. aegypti was the vector responsible for transmission, as well as complete lab infectious studies with Zika, and determining how the virus develops in laboratory strains of this mosquito.

In 2017 André joined the CDC Southeastern Center of Excellence in Vector Borne diseases continuing his research on Ae. aegypti. André is part of the center-based project to create Highly Attractive Biological Insecticide Traps (HABITraps). The goal of these mosquito traps is to lure more fed (gravid) female mosquitoes to the HABITraps than a trap without an attractant. They ran a series of studies and found that geosmin is a strong attractant for gravid-female mosquitoes. Geosmin is naturally produced by beetroot and extracts of this vegetable also proved to be a potent natural attractant. This study was published recently and can be found here. By developing traps that attract more gravid females they are able to remove eggs or females from the environment to suppress mosquito population as well as use the eggs these mosquitoes lay as field samples for genetics, genomics, insecticide resistance or behavioral studies.