# Population Biology of African Malaria Vectors and Parasites

> **NIH NIH D43** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2024 · $298,080

## Abstract

Population Biology of African Malaria Vectors and Parasites
Malaria is the most fatal vector-borne disease in Africa. At present, the first-line
intervention tools are insecticide-treated nets and indoor residual spray that target
indoor-biting mosquitoes. However, the spread of insecticide resistance and increasing
outdoor biting behaviors of the malaria vectors has significantly hindered the
effectiveness of these tools, resulting slow progress of malaria control in the past
several years across Africa. In addition, the African continent has been experiencing
very rapid environmental changes such as urbanization, deforestation, dam
construction, irrigation and the resulting agricultural practice shift in the past two
decades. On top of the vector behavioral change and insecticide resistance
development, rapid environmental changes in the African continent have added
additional challenges in malaria control. Addressing these challenges in malaria control
requires knowledge on the impact of environmental modification on vector biology and
epidemiology, and requires optimization of the vector control methods that are adaptive
to the rapidly changing vector ecology and malaria epidemiology. Recent advancements
in molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics and ecological modeling, provide exciting
opportunities for developing new malaria vector control tools and application strategies.
Unfortunately, a large number of scientists from malaria-endemic countries have not
been able to leverage these new technologies extensively in their research. The specific
scientific objectives of this competing renewal application focus on mechanistic studies
on the impact of environmental modifications on malaria vector biology, epidemiology,
and development and evaluation of new malaria vector control tools and application
strategies. The overarching goal of this program is to advance the career development
of promising young scientists from sub-Saharan African countries and assist them
address the new challenges in malaria vector control in their regions. We propose to
accomplish this goal by training four postdoctoral fellows and eight Ph.D. students from
malaria-endemic Africa, and through workshops and “training the trainers” sessions to
broaden the impact of this program. In addition to obtaining research experience in
molecular biology, bioinformatics, vector ecology and epidemiology, the program will
offer a core training curriculum that focuses on biostatistics, bioinformatics, modeling,
scientific writing and responsible conduct of research. The superb infrastructure and
capacity at the international training sites in Kenya and Ethiopia and at the University of
California at Irvine are ideal for the proposed training. This training program will
contribute significantly to malaria research capacity building in Africa and career
development of African scientists by bridging laboratory and field research experience in
vector biology and malaria epidemiology...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10761706
- **Project number:** 5D43TW001505-25
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Guiyun Yan
- **Activity code:** D43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $298,080
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2000-09-29 → 2025-07-18

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10761706

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10761706, Population Biology of African Malaria Vectors and Parasites (5D43TW001505-25). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10761706. Licensed CC0.

---

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