Human blood is cappuccino for mosquitoes — stimulating and hot, but not too hot
The millennia-old waltz between mosquitoes and the creatures possessing their optimal blood — humans — is one with tragic consequences for half of our planet today, each year yielding 200 million malaria cases and 400,000 human deaths.
Virginia Tech School of Neuroscience Assistant Professor Lina Ni hopes to cut in on this dance by researching one of a mosquito’s more lab-friendly and less dangerous colleagues, the fruit fly. Her research has recently been awarded a five-year $1.05 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.
