Rockies and High Plains Vector-borne Diseases Center Summer Internship

 My first month working in the Saavedra lab as a part of the RaHP Vec Program has been filled with a lot of learning moments. I have had to learn how the insectary operates, how to identify mosquito species and sexes, and I have had to apply my coursework learning to lab procedures that are mostly new to me. My undergraduate coursework has prepared me well for the projects I am working on, but learning to apply this knowledge to real-world situations has been a new experience. Applications of everything from simple skills like dimensional analysis to molecular genetics, evolutionary modeling, and physiology have made my first month in the RaHP program not only interesting and exciting but also a good refresher on a lot of topics. When I first started a month ago, I was unsure of how to operate in the lab and the insectary, spent a good number of evenings reviewing lesser-understood topics, and needed a lot of help with learning how to do things. Now, a month later, I can work effic...

Hi everyone, I'll quickly introduce myself and describe my project in this post: I'm Anthony Wendling, a second year student at CSU studying biochemistry. I enjoy exercise and being outdoors. I'm working with Dr. Burton and Dr. Foy out of CVID (Center for Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases) to test the efficacy of a volatile pyrethroid spacial emanator. I also work with in Dr. Rosenberg's lab where we study the effect of arboviruses on mosquito host transcriptional and genomic regulatory processes.  The pyrethroid study is my main focus for the RaHP VEC internship. We are hoping to determine whether the product is suitable for use in local communities. The planning has mostly been completed and we are currently recruiting residents to volunteer their backyards. Our recruitment strategy is based on informational flyers and going door to door within target neighborhoods. I designed the flyer and pamphlet that we are using, and have visited two target neighborhoods. I plan o...

  Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve shifted gears from lab work to preparing content for the Outreach Event Kit that I have been working on for the Kading Lab. I have been creating some informational content to bring to events, including brochures about West Nile Virus prevention and transmission, a mosquito species identification “cheat sheet” (inspired by Olivia and Isabelle), and a pinned mosquito collection. To shape my content to the specificity I wanted, Olivia taught me how to connect my laptop to one of our lab’s microscopes. Using the microscope software, I was able to photograph mosquito features that I wanted to include in my brochures and cheat sheet. I want to have a hands-on activity that will serve as both an engagement tool and a window for the public to see what it’s like to work in the lab. We have a traveling microscope that I plan to use it to give my audience a chance to identify mosquitoes themselves. I will set up some of my pinned mosquitoes under the micr...

 Hi everyone,     I thought it would be worthwhile to give an update about our results with the tick and understory project. We have come up with a final model: a zero-inflated Generalized Linear Mixed Model with a Conway-Maxwell Poisson distribution. This type of model helps with count data, where there are many zero values and some underdispersion. Underdispersion occurs when our observed data's variability is less than the mean or theoretical variability. The results tell us how ticks increase/decrease in abundance with given parameters, or how likely they are to be present/absent given similar parameters. This model ended up fitting the best with our data and gave some interesting results.     Concerning understory data, our models tell us that ticks are more abundant in areas with more flowering plants and more litter relative to other types of plants. The other important parameters were the time during the summer, altitude, and the distance from the trail....

  As the summer is starting to wrap up I'm finally starting to get into some tick work. For the most part its been outreach work in co-operation with Dr. Roundy at CDPH. I had a meeting with him last week to go over what tick issues face Colorado. It's nice that we don’t technically have any ticks here that cause Lyme disease or Alpha- gal; however that also means that there is essentially no funding for active tick surveillance. Instead Dr. Roundy relies on citizen surveillance. It's clearly been somewhat successful, as they have been able to find areas with soft  tick infestation. However it seems to be the most successful when  paired with CSU's outreach on hiking trails. I'm working on a project with Weld county to essentially do the same thing. We are working on making signages and little outposts for people to check for ticks on the Cache Le Poudre trails and then package them right then and there. I'm hoping the city of Greeley will be open to putting the...

This week, I was presented with the opportunity to help man the Animas Mosquito Control District booth at the Durango county fair. We were armed with informational pamphlets, coloring books, and multi-tool pens to incentivize the public into learning more about our methods and mission. While by all appearances this event should have been one characterized by public education and connection, the fair was in fact...empty! We had just shy of 7 individuals come by to visit (granted, they left far more informed), and several children roll by and swipe a set of crayons. This was underwhelming to say the least, as we expected a torrent of either questions or accusations. Unfortunately, this is nearly all I have to say about this week; it was remarkably uneventful. However, I've found that sometimes that simply the way the cookie crumbles as an intern. Hoping to have more to report next week!

 Hi everybody!  This last week was great. Monday, IDing and catching up on lab stuff. Tuesday, UNM, processed samples and ran the Kingfisher RNA extraction. Wednesday, set every trap on the historic route! Thursday, ID all the mosquitos that came in from Buffalo Turbine, done by the other interns + Jess earlier in the week. Friday, we got to see the UNM people present during a poster session! Jeremy and Hailey are the two summer students who helped us a lot with the lab work, and they put together a poster summarizing the work they've done so far with the WNV testing. It was really cool! I have a group photo but it hasn't been sent to me yet and I didn't want to put off the blog post any longer.  I like doing the lab stuff, it keeps me fresh with more molecular work, and now that I know how to do it (and have a very solid procedure written by Jeremy and Hailey) it's fun to just sit and work. We have been seeing more vexans this week than previous weeks, at the beginning...