# Development of a novel gel bait for the control of mosquitoes in urban environments

> **NIH NIH R43** · APEX BAIT TECHNOLOGIES, INC. · 2022 · $249,927

## Abstract

Project Summary
Mosquito-vectored disease outbreaks are on the rise in the USA (4,858 in 2004 to 47,461 in 2016, CDC:
National notifiable disease surveillance system). The increased incidents of the human cases of dengue virus,
West Nile virus, and chikungunya virus among urban populations indicate the role of expanding urbanization in
facilitating the production of disease-transmitting mosquitoes. Our proposal aims to develop a novel
semiochemical-based, blood-substitute gel bait to improve monitoring and control strategies for a variety of
mosquito species in our nation's urban communities. Bait has become the preferred method of control against
many urban insect pests due to its economic cost, ease of deployment, and superior efficacy coupled with
minimal impact on public health, environment, and non-target species. Despite this, bait technologies targeting
mosquitoes are lacking, as their unique feeding behavior makes the use of typical solid baits difficult. Even the
highly investigated attractive toxic sugar baits (ATSB) targeting adult mosquitoes have failed to yield an
effective commercial product. This SBIR project proposes the development of a blood substitute gel bait that
will exploit both the blood and sugar-feeding behavior of mosquitoes instead of only sugar feeding behavior as
in ATSB baits. Specifically, we hypothesize that a bait matrix based on a combination of blood and sugar meal
components, combined with attractants, phagostimulants, and insecticides could effectively overcome many of
the pitfalls of current chemical control methods and result in an effective commercial product that can be used
in the urban setting for mosquito control. Our research team recently reported that a prototype blood-substitute
gel bait containing attractants, phagostimulants, and insecticides outperforms the only commercially available
mosquito ATSB product in head-to-head mosquito attraction and mortality comparisons. Accordingly, we
predict that targeting the blood-feeding behavior of mosquitos by incorporating long-distance attractants and
reduced risk insecticide in gel bait formulations would be highly successful in reducing mosquito populations in
urban settings. We propose three specific aims to test the technical feasibility of this approach for mosquito
control. In aim 1, we will determine if the addition of long-distance attractants can further increase mosquito
attraction to the gel bait. In aim 2, we will evaluate the performance of boric acid and spinosad as reduced risk
bait insecticides against three different species of mosquito. In aim 3, we will test the efficacy of prototype bait
containing newly identified attractants and insecticide (from aim 1 and 2) in semi-field test and determine the
environmental stability of gel bait to access indoor and outdoor field life of this product. The results of our work
will build on Apex Bait Technologies' recent accumulated research on host attractants and blood
phagostimulants as well as on...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10478531
- **Project number:** 1R43AI165045-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** APEX BAIT TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Dangsheng Liang
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $249,927
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-04-06 → 2023-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10478531

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10478531, Development of a novel gel bait for the control of mosquitoes in urban environments (1R43AI165045-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10478531. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*