INFRAVEC: research capacity for the implementation of genetic control of mosquitoes

Mosquitoes represent a major and global cause of human suffering due to the diseases they transmit. These include parasitic diseases, i.e. malaria and filariasis, and viral infections such as dengue, encephalitis, and yellow fever. The threat of mosquito-borne diseases is not limited to tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Trade and climate changes have opened new niches to tropical vectors in temperate areas of the world, thus putting previously unaffected regions at risk of disease transmission. The most notable example is the spread of Aedes species, particularly the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus to southern Europe (reviewed in Ref. 1). Endogenous cases of vector-borne diseases including West Nile fever, chikungunya, and dengue are frequently being reported, highlighting the increased risk of tropical diseases for the European population. Typically, vector control measures targetting mosquitoes are in most cases carried with the use of insecticides. This approach has a number of limitations that constrain their effectiveness. Lack of resources, inadequate logistics, and the insurgence of insecticide resistance are some of the problems encountered in disease-endemic countries (DECs). More recently in Africa, the widespread use of insecticide-treated bed nets has caused a dramatic reduction in malaria mortality and morbidity. Bed nets however are a temporary solution, a testimony of the failure to implement area-wide control measures aimed at eradicating malaria. US and Europe, with well-developed economies, have also failed to control the spread of mosquito vectors, particularly Aedes species. This alarming situation clearly speaks for the need to expand the knowledge on mosquito vectors and for the urgency of developing and validating novel biological and genetic control measures that overcome the limitations of current insecticide-based approaches. During the last 10 years, significant advances have been made in understanding the biology, the genetics, and the ecology of Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes paralleled by the development of new molecular tools for investigating gene function and mosquito ability to transmit parasite and viral diseases. They offer a compelling opportunity to design and validate new genetic vector control measures. The size and the complexity of this undertaking require a high level of capacity, effort, and technological platforms. No laboratory--or even institution--has the resources, the infrastructure capacity, and the expertise to accomplish this task alone. INFRAVEC addresses the need of the scientific community to share facilities and integrate cutting-edge knowledge and technologies that are not readily accessible but nevertheless critical to exploit genetic and genomic information in the effort to control mosquito-borne diseases. Its objective is to provide laboratories that currently operate individually with limited coordination and little sharing of technologies, with the collective research capacity of the laboratories forming the core project infrastructure. INFRAVEC has provided resources to 31 institutions from European and African countries to enhance collaborative links, to execute joint research activity, and most importantly to enable individual researchers (from PhD students to established academics) to carry complex experimental activities by assigning research packages or ‘infrastructure access’ to be executed in the laboratory facilities and infrastructures of INFRAVEC. I report here on the overall activities of INFRAVEC and its impact on the scientific community with the purpose to initiate a dialogue with all stakeholders on its future evolution.