Project:

Barcoding Mosquitoes to Observe Current Trends of Mosquito Species That Target Humans on Long Island

Students:

Brendan Jiang, Mingxuan Chen, Ethan Wu, Kenneth Shi

School:

Fitree Learning, Nassau

Mentors:

Jeffrey Chen

Abstract:

Mosquitoes are infamous for being a bloodsucker and a disease transmitter. Having approximately 3,500 species around the world, some 200 species of mosquitoes have already evolved to target specifically humans. This is due to the rising climate where mosquitoes are living closer to humans. In hot seasons, humans tend to have water stored in cool places, allowing mosquitoes to use the sources of water as breeding spots. This eventually allows some mosquito species to evolve towards humans as prey. Not only that, but some of them are dangerous species acting as vectors for several diseases that are harmful to humans. Thus, we hope that by utilizing Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's equipment, we can detect and differentiate mosquito species on Long Island and potentially identify the human-targeting species. If the DNA barcoding analysis reveals a new species that has not previously been categorized as preferring human targets, that species can potentially be added to the list of mosquito

Poster:

Team samples: