Our research

Insects are the most diverse group of multicellular organisms and can directly impact human society in many ways. Insects have beneficial roles for society such as pollination but can also transmit viruses and other pathogens that threaten human health and livestock worldwide. Our goal is to understand mechanisms of virus-host interactions in insects that could eventually help control disease transmission. We are especially interested in studying antiviral immunity in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that are important insect vectors for viruses such as Dengue and Zika.

Our research is focused on two major areas:

i) Antiviral mechanisms: We are identifying and characterizing defense mechanisms that play a role in the control of viral infection in mosquitoes. In addition, we take advantage of an important model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, to study different aspects of insect antiviral defense. We are especially interested in characterizing the antiviral role of RNA interference pathways, whereby virus-derived small RNAs associate with Argonaute proteins to silence viral gene expression.

ii) Virus biodiversity: We are interested in characterizing the collection of viruses, the virome, found in wild insects and how these may impact host biology. Our major focus is the virome of Aedes mosquitoes since these are the major vectors for viral diseases worldwide.

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