Rockies and High Plains Vector-borne Diseases Center Summer Internship

Hello everyone! My name is Alina, and I'm a senior at USU majoring in biochemistry. I have been working in Saarmaan's lab at USU for 2 years, primarily on insectary maintenance and some genetic testing.  Now that I'm a RaHP VEC intern, I'm going to the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District (SLCMAD) once a week to learn what they do, including surveillance field work. However, the main thing I'm working on with SLCMAD is attempting to develop a new diagnostic tool for Lysinibacillus sphaericus ( Lsph) resistance in  Culex Pipiens. ⍺-glucosidase is an important receptor in Lsph toxicity. Our hypothesis is that resistant Culex Pipiens have a lower ⍺-glucosidase activity than susceptible. We are using 4th instar larval samples and an ⍺-glucosidase activity assay kit to test this. So far, I have conducted 2 bioassays. I want to share in this post  what the bioassays look like: We grind the larva in PBS.  We prepare a master mix using the kit's reagents. We add ...

       The past two weeks, I have been working to help finish up the PCRs for the kdr mutations in Aedes aegypti from a thermal project that is being done in the Saavedra Lab, and with this project's work being wrapped up, my focus has switched over to the RaHP surveillance project.  This has meant a lot more mosquito identification work, which is more difficult now that there is not primarily Aedes Vexans in our overnight CO2 traps. We are finally starting to get a good amount of Culex Tarsalis in our traps, which is the primary focus of our surveillance, although we are also conducting bottle bioassays on Culex Pipiens simply because of the number of individuals we have been able to trap.     We have had mixed results from traps and sometimes will have up to 90% of the individuals in the trap being Tarsalis, and other times only a few individuals in the trap being Tarsalis, which has made conducting consistent bioassay trials with sufficient replicat...

 Hello everyone! My name is Jamie, and I am currently an undergraduate student at Eastern New Mexico University. I have a major in Forensic Biology with a minor in Health Communications. Even though I go to ENMU, I am in Albuquerque this summer, which is where I have the wonderful opportunity to gain many new experiences from this internship! I have been slowly getting accustomed to the tasks we do per week, but I would say overall it has been a very enjoyable experience so far!  We have been trying to expand our area of mosquito surveillance to the West side, this was our first official attempt.... and was not so favorable. Setting the traps was no problem, collecting, however, collection was a different story. One of our planned sites (a golf course) had not informed all of its employees of our mosquito traps, and ended up throwing them away! Long story short, we were able to thankfully recover all of them with minimal damage. Below is a picture of me along with a fellow col...

 Hello Everyone! My name is Karen Khaykin and I am a current MPH/DVM student at the Foy Lab. I am currently working on fulfilling my Capstone requirement for my MPH, which has driven me to join the West Nile Serosurveillance project. This is a joint project between RaHPVEC and CSPH aiming to evaluate the seroprevalence and seroincidence of WNV in Northern Colorado.  Personally, I have pretty limited experience with lab work. While I previously volunteered at the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab within the Parasitology section and gained experience in ELISAs and IFAs, I have never done cell culture or work with viruses, so I am super excited for the opportunity this summer. This week has been pretty slow as we have been waiting for IRB approval. However, I worked on creating some maps for neighborhoods we plan to canvas using QGIS, which I have never used before!  Next week, I am planning on coming in and learning how to do cell culture and creating viral stocks which I am absolu...

Hello everyone! My name is Matilda and I am an undergraduate from the University of New Mexico majoring in Environmental Science and minoring in Biology. I am currently planning on getting my degree in entomology after I receive my bachelor's and eventually continue working with mosquitoes in vector-borne disease control in New Mexico. I'm working in New Mexico with the City of Albuquerque's Environmental Health department who is collaborating with UNM to survey mosquito populations and test for both insecticide resistance and West Nile virus.  Cute photo of a mosquito larva under a microscope taken by one of my fellow interns These past few weeks have mostly been comprised of learning the protocols for trapping, collecting, identifying mosquitoes, and then vialing them to send off to UNM for disease testing. I've gotten to do so much so far that it's very difficult to pinpoint the highlights of what I've been up to, but here are a few of my favorite things I...

 Hi all, This week's work was primarily focused in finalizing the recruitment phase of our field study. I was out from Monday-Wednesday, so my contribution for this week was limited. We've found seven participants from neighborhood canvasing, and three others from personal connections. I went out again yesterday, and am hoping that we receive 1-2 more responses from that.  Currently, both clusters have sufficient participants, but there is a suboptimal distribution of them in one neighborhood. In order to ensure that the volatile pyrethroid does not affect its neighboring collection site, the houses must be sufficiently distanced. Additionally, there is a concern that mosquito populations would be shared between houses if they are too close. Although not ideal for our study, these problems should be mitigated by our latin square rotation.  We are nearing the time when we have to start collecting, so there may be little choice in whether this problem can be resolved. ...

 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...