Bite this! Mosquito feeding chamber uses fake skin, real blood
Innovative tool tests blood-sucking behavior with technology instead of volunteers

Date:
February 9, 2023
Source:
Rice University
Summary:
Bioengineers and experts in tropical medicine have invented a new
way of studying mosquito feeding behavior using technology instead
of live volunteers. Their open-source design combines automated
cameras, artificial intelligence and blood-infused, 3D-printed
'synthetic skin.'

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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
If watching animals feast on human blood for 30-plus hours isn't your
idea of fun, don't worry. The robot can do it.


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Rice University bioengineers have teamed up with tropical medicine experts
from Tulane University to take some of the pain out of studying the
feeding behavior of mosquitoes. The insects' bites can spread diseases
like malaria, dengue and yellow fever, but setting up experiments to
examine their behavior can take a big bite out of lab budgets.

"Many mosquito experiments still rely on human volunteers and animal
subjects," said Kevin Janson, a Rice bioengineering graduate student
and lead co-author of a study about the research published this week in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Live subject testing can
be expensive, and Janson said the "data can take many hours to process."
So he and his co-authors found a way to automate the collection and
processing of that data using inexpensive cameras and machine-learning software. To eliminate the need for live volunteers, their system
uses patches of synthetic skin made with a 3D printer. Each patch of gelatin-like hydrogel comes complete with tiny passageways that can be
filled with flowing blood.

To create the stand-ins for skin, Rice's team, which included Janson
and his Ph.D. adviser Omid Veiseh, used bioprinting techniques that were pioneered in the lab of former Rice professor Jordan Miller.

For feeding tests, as many as six of the hydrogels can be placed in a transparent plastic box about the size of a volleyball. The chambers are surrounded with cameras that point at each blood-infused hydrogel patch.

Mosquitos are placed in the chamber, and the cameras record how often
the insects land at each location, how long they stay, whether or not
they bite, how long they feed and the like.

The system was tested at the laboratory of Dawn Wesson, a mosquito expert
and associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Wesson's research group has facilities for breeding and testing large populations of mosquitoes of varying species.

In the proof-of-concept experiments featured in the study, Wesson,
Janson and co-authors used the system to examine the effectiveness of
existing mosquito repellents made with either DEET or a plant-based
repellent derived from the oil of lemon eucalyptus plants. Tests showed mosquitoes readily fed on hydrogels without any repellent and stayed
away from hydrogel patches coated with either repellent. While DEET
was slightly more effective, both tests showed each repellent deterred mosquitoes from feeding.

Veiseh, the study's corresponding author and an assistant professor
of bioengineering in Rice's George R. Brown School of Engineering,
said the results suggest the behavioral test system can be scaled up
to test or discover new repellents and to study mosquito behavior more
broadly. He said the system also could open the door for testing in labs
that couldn't previously afford it.

"It provides a consistent and controlled method of observation,"
Veiseh said.

"The hope is researchers will be able to use that to identify ways to
prevent the spread of disease in the future." Wesson said her lab is
already using the system to study viral transmission of dengue, and she
plans to use it in future studies involving malaria parasites.

"We are using the system to examine virus transmission during blood
feeding," Wesson said. "We are interested both in how viruses get taken
up by uninfected mosquitoes and how viruses get deposited, along with
saliva, by infected mosquitoes.

"If we had a better understanding of the fine mechanics and proteins
and other molecules that are involved, we might be able to develop some
means of interfering in those processes," she said.

This research was supported by the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen
C. Kleberg Foundation.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Malaria # Medical_Topics # Viruses
o Plants_&_Animals
# Insects_(including_Butterflies) # Pests_and_Parasites
# Virology
o Matter_&_Energy
# Microarrays # Robotics_Research # Materials_Science
* RELATED_TERMS
o Artificial_heart o Wound o Circuit_design o Mosquito o
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========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Rice_University. Original written
by Jade Boyd. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Kevin D. Janson, Brendan H. Carter, Samuel B. Jameson, Jane
E. de Verges,
Erika S. Dalliance, Madison K. Royse, Paul Kim, Dawn M. Wesson,
Omid Veiseh. Development of an automated biomaterial platform to
study mosquito feeding behavior. Frontiers in Bioengineering and
Biotechnology, 2023; 11 DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1103748 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230209094201.htm

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