West Nile virus was recently detected in mosquitoes in DeKalb County. Mosquito-borne illnesses kill hundreds of thousands of people each year. Some historians believe they've killed about half of all humans who have ever lived.
One Northern Illinois University professor received a $40,000 grant to study a major unknown: what bacteria mosquitoes carry.
Shicheng Chen's lab received the grant from the Illinois Innovation Network. The lab is studying the relationship between mosquitoes and environmental microorganisms.
Researchers are specifically investigating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a growing public health threat, especially in health care settings. They have found that some of the bacteria in mosquitoes contain antimicrobial resistance genes, or AMR genes, which allow bacteria to survive exposure to antibiotics.
"Some of these bacteria," Chen said, "carry the AMR genes that are nearly identical to those found in the hospital or in the clinic setting."
Chen's lab has collected mosquitoes in local areas, including DeKalb, Sycamore, Rockford and Kane and Lee Counties. Researchers hope to collect more mosquitoes using funding from the grant.
The grant will support Chen's lab as researchers continue to survey mosquitoes.
"We can monitor mosquitoes," Chen said, "and then we will actually carefully look at what kind of bacteria they carry. We will detail the emerging potential and the resistant genes much earlier."
Chen said we already know mosquitoes carry a ton of viruses and parasites, but we don't always know what bacteria the insects carry, how microbial communities change across environments or which bacteria could affect human health.
He said that because mosquitoes spend different stages of their life cycle in water and on land, their microbiome can provide a snapshot of the broader ecosystem.
He also said learning more about the bacteria mosquitoes carry could help prepare people for future public health risks.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
