Team:Queens Canada/Project/Overview

The drone of the mosquito is a common sound. On camping trips it serves as a herald of itchy swells and signals that it is time to break out the bug spray. In many other parts of the world however, this sound means something completely different. It signals the presence of a vector for diseases such as malaria, West Nile and dengue fever. Mosquitoes are responsible for the widespread of these sicknesses; there were 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 alone, 660,000 of which resulted in death. Mosquitoes have been found to use several air-bourne chemical cues to locate a blood-meal, which act as ligands for its odorant receptors. These include a host’s skin emanations, exhaled air, and urine. The host’s foot odour in particular (Zwiebel and Takken, 2011), one key component of which is isovaleric acid produced by Staphylococcus epidermidis, a resident species of normal cutaneous flora (citation).