- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The grants, $7.5 million from the National Institutes of Health and $2.2 million from Notre Dame University, will help fund the program for the next five years, said Scott, director of the Mosquito Research Program and the principal investigator of the dengue research program.
“There is no vaccine nor drug that is effective against this virus,” said Scott, who has studied dengue more than 25 years and is recognized as the leading expert in the ecology and epidemiology of the disease.
Dengue virus is an emerging pathogen that has been spreading globally over the last four decades, including parts of United States. Troublingly statistics show that more than half of the world's population is now at risk of infection and the severe, life-threatening disease has increased considerably.
Dengue virus is transmitted by Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that bites during the daytime as people move about in their daily routines.
While vaccines are under development, it is not clear how they can be best applied when they are available, including in combination with other interventions like mosquito control, Scott said. “New disease prevention tools, in addition to vaccines, and an improved understanding of virus transmission dynamics, which will enhance surveillance and epidemic response, are needed to reduce the global burden of dengue.”
The two grants are:
Spatial Repellants for Control of Vector-borne Disease: The $2.2 million grant from Notre Dame University is the first-ever project aimed at dengue prevention. It will focus on studying the potential for spatial insect repellants to reduce exposure to dengue virus in people's homes. The approach has shown promise for reducing malaria infections. “Most exposure to this mosquito takes place in homes; your home or the home of a family member or friend,” Scott said. “The spatial repellant approach, by keeping mosquitoes out of the house, is an innovative approach to reduce risk of infection.” The program, led by Nicole Achee and Neil Lobo at the Eck Institute for Global Health at Notre Dame, includes research on malaria control in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia.
Quantifying Heterogeneities in Dengue Virus Transmission Dynamics: This five-year $7.3 million Program Project (P01) from the National Institutes of Health received a rare perfect impact score from the review panel who called it “exceptional” and “highly likely to achieve even its most ambitious aims.” In prior research, Scott and his colleagues showed that people play an important role moving dengue virus from one place to another throughout a city (Stoddard et al. 2013 PNAS). The new project aims to quantify how much people, with different degrees of illness, vary in their contribution to virus transmission and spread.
Scott said this is critical information for improving surveillance programs, developing more effective targeted approaches for disease prevention, and designing vaccine deployment strategies. “We have known for a long time that most dengue infections do not make people sick enough to seek medical care or see a doctor,” he said. “What remains a mystery is the contribution of those people with mild or no illness to the spread and persistence of the virus.”
Added Morrison “It is hard finding people who are infected, but not sick because they show signs of illness. After 15 years, our team has developed the experience, infrastructure, and protocols to allow us to find these people and define their role in virus transmission. We are hopeful that our project will revolutionize thinking about dengue and lead to new approaches for its prevention.”
The five-year project is slated to begin in Iquitos later this year. In addition to Scott and Morrison, the leadership team includes Steven Stoddard of UC Davis, John Elder of San Diego State University, Alan Rothman of the University of Rhode Island, and Uriel Kitron and Gonzalo Vasquez Prokopec of Emory University.
Other collaborators on the new grant are:
- Christopher Barker, Alex Perkins, Robert Reiner and Veronica Armijos, all of UC Davis
- Robert Hontz, USA Naval Medical Research Unit Six, Lima
- Louis Lambrechts, Institute Pasteur, Paris
- Kanya Long, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Mich.
- Valerie Paz Soldan, Tulane University Office of Global Health, Peru
- Lance Waller, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.
- Alun Lloyd, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.
- Moises Sihuincha, Hospital Apoyo, Iquitos, Peru
- Cameron P. Simmons, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam
Related Links:
Dengue Fever Cases Have Been Seriously Underestimated (NPR)
Refining the Global Spatial Limits of Dengue Virus Transmission by Evidence-Based Consensus (PLOS)
Dengue (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Other recipients of undergraduate teaching awards are Emily Albu, Classics; Seeta Chaganti, English; and Susan Keen, Evolution and Ecology.
They and other award winners will be honored at a ceremony hosted by the UC Davis Academic Senate/UC Davis Academic Federation on Tuesday night, May 13 in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre of the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The 6:15 program will be preceded by a reception.
Carey, an internationally recognized scientist, was praised in the nomination package as “an incredible teacher who eagerly and passionately engages students through his highly successful, innovative and digitally progressive techniques…he is known as a trail blazer, a forward-thinker, and a digital-savvy strategist on the cutting edge of education.“
Carey motivates, encourages and inspires students to learn through creative, innovative ways, such as the student-produced, instructor-directed video productions, “One Minute Entomologist” and “How to Make an Insect Collection (the latter won an award from the Entomological Society of America). Student comments about his classes ranged from “best ever class at UC Davis” to “invaluable” to “unique opportunity.” Another wrote that he comes prepared to each lecture, "excited and passionate to teach.”
Said one student: “Without a doubt, Dr. Carey is the most amazing, creative, inspiring and technologically savvy professor on campus…Dr. Carey encourages classroom discussion, treating all questions with respect, dignity and wisdom; he often follows up with a humorous anecdote. His lectures, course organization, innovation, creativity and mentoring are extraordinary.”
Carey is the pioneering and driving force behind the UCTV Research Seminars and began video-recording seminars in his department several years ago and then encouraged video-recording on all the other nine UC campuses.
Carey originated and launched “One Minute Entomologist,” in which students research an insect or arthropod, outline it, and video-record it. So far, the students have produced more than 125 videos. He and Professors Lynn Kimsey and Edwin Lewis co-teach the course.
Another innovative class is “Terrorism and War,” an online course offered by Carey through the Science and Society program. It was selected one of 27 courses, UC systemwide, to receive grand support ($75,000) from UC Online.
Among his many other projects:
Write Like a Professor; The Research Term Paper, in which he partnered with Assistant Professor Sarah Perrault in the University Writing Program to produce a playlist of 13 videos.
Longevity, a 4-credit cross-listed course that Carey teaches based on his research program in the biology and demography of aging (biodemography). After offering the course to 14 students in 1999, he saw enrollment soar to an initial cap of 200 students and then, due to increasing demand, jump to 250 last year. The course, designed entirely by Carey, provides students with crucial information on aging and lifespan, so that they can become skilled human development and health professionals, informed voters, knowledgeable parents and grandparents, health-conscious citizens, and life-long students of writing. See kinship video.
Carey is active in the Campus Council for Information Technology, which provides advice and recommendations to key UC Davis administration on educational and information technology and its use at UC Davis in support of instruction, research, administration and public service.
Carey brings to the classroom his expertise in many scientific areas. He is considered the world's foremost authority on arthropod demography. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and three books on this or closely related topics, including the monograph Longevity (Princeton, 2003) and the “go-to” book on insect demography, Demography for Biologists with Special Emphasis on Insects (Oxford, 1993). His landmark paper on “slowing of mortality at older ages,” published in Science in 1992 and cited more than 350 times, keys in on his seminal discovery that mortality slows at advanced ages. The UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Science cited this as one of “100 Ways in Which Our College Has Shaped the World.”
Carey recently received the 2014 C. W. Woodworth Award from the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America (PBESA) for his outstanding accomplishments in entomology spanning four decades. He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Gerontological Society of America, and the California Academy of Sciences. The professor chaired the systemwide UC Committee on Research Policy, served on the system-wide UC Academic Council, and is a former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. In addition, he serves as the associate editor of three journals: Genus, Aging Cell, and Demographic Research.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sandra "Sandy" Vice, financial analyst/supervisor with the UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology and Department of Entomology and Nematology, has just completed the seven-month “UC Davis Administrative Officers for the Future” (AOFTF) Program.
Vice received a certificate, signed by Chancellor Linda Katehi and presented by the chancellor and Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter, at a ceremony held recently in the UC Davis Conference Center.
The only participant from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Vice was one of 18 UC Davis-campus staff enrolled in the program, who were selected from a pool of 47. Also chosen were 12 from the UC Davis Health System.
The AOFTE program took place Oct. 1 to April 22 and involved 16 hours a month. It also included some 40 to 60 hours of “home work,” involving individual work and group projects. Vice was assigned to a group researching disability awareness. They teamed to present a Powerpoint to the entire group and special guests. “The objective was to improve the climate of disability among staff,” she said.
Among the other topics they pursued were personal branding, strategic planning, leadership, and management tools. Guest speakers included a number of UC Davis and UC Davis Health System administrators.
Vice joined the UC Davis workforce in January of 1995, when she accepted a purchasing position with the Center for Engineering Plants for Resistance Against Pathogens. She advanced to account manager and then joined Plant Pathology as an account manager.
“Eventually I would like to apply for a CAO (chief administrative officer) post,” Vice said. She also plans to enroll in more leadership and management classes.
A graduate of Vacaville High School, Vice studied business at Solano and Mira Costa community colleges. She and her family, husband James, and son, Luke, 15, reside in Winters. Another son, James, resides in the Bay Area.
Military service runs in the family. Husband James was active in the Marine Corps and is now in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. Son James, who works for United Airlines in communications, is a reservist in the Air Force (he was active- duty Marine Corps but after college joined the Air Force Reserves).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Associate professor Neal Williams will be the host.
"Agriculture faces the formidable challenge of securing food availability, producing renewable energy, and adapting to climate change - without compromising public goods closely tied to agricultural landscapes such as biodiversity, clean water, cultural values, and climate change mitigation," Bommarco says in his abstract. "A key vehicle to solve this dilemma is to replace external inputs, such as pesticides and mineral nutrients, with crop production options that rely entirely, or to large extent, on ecosystem services supplied by biodiversity. Focusing on two services provided by beneficial insects - crop pollination and biological pest control - I present examples of ecological and agronomic entomological research that can underpin the development of productive and sustainable agricultural practices."
Bommarco's primary research involves the ecology and management of crop pollination and biological control of insect pests in agricultural landscapes. He also addresses how conservation of biodiversity can be efficiently combined with agriculture and management of ecosystem services linked to crop production.
Of his work, Bommarco says on his website: "My research interest lies in exploring the landscape ecology of insects and plants in agricultural landscapes. I am interested in how land use, landscape structure, and conservation efforts affect the distribution and dynamics of biodiversity, with particular focus on organisms that deliver ecosystem services to us. In this context I examine the community ecology, population ecology and functioning of predators that provide us with biological control of agricultural pest insects, and of flower visiting insects (such as bumble bees, solitary bees, hover flies, and butterflies) that pollinate crop and wild flowers. I participate in interdisciplinary collaborations that aim to translate the attained information, on the ecology and functioning of various organisms inhabiting our cultured landscapes, into policy support and suggestions for future land use management of biodiversity and ecosystem services."
He is part of a research team working on these issues. (Read more at Ecosystem services and conservation research team.) In addition, Bommarco is the handling editor for Oecologia.
His recent publications include:
Garibaldi L et al. 2013. Wild bees enhance fruitset of crops regardless of honey bee abundance. Science in press
Rusch A, Bommarco R, Jonsson M, Smith HG, Ekbom B. 2013. Flow and stability of natural pest control services depend on complexity and crop rotation at the landscape scale. Journal of Applied Ecology in press
Bommarco R., Kleijn D., Potts S.G. Ecological intensification: harnessing ecosystem services for food security. Trends in Ecology and Evolution online
Marini L., A. Bertolli, E. Bona, G. Federici, F. Martini, F. Prosser & R. Bommarco. 2012. Beta-diversity patterns elucidate mechanisms of alien plant invasion in mountains. Global ecology and biogeography in press
Bommarco R., L. Marini, B.E. Vaissière. 2012. Insect pollination enhances seed yield, quality and market value in oilseed rape. Oecologia in press
Marini L., Bruun H.H., Heikkinen R.K., Helm A., Honnay O., Krauss J., Kühn I., Lindborg R., Pärtel M., Bommarco R. 2012. Traits related to species persistence and dispersal explain changes in plant communities subjected to habitat loss. Diversity and Distributions in press
Bommarco's seminar is scheduled to be video-recorded for later posting on UCTV.
(Editor's Note: See remainder of Spring Quarter Seminars, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"We will be celebrating the diversity of moths and making moth-inspired cards in advance of Mother's Day," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "We'll have a cloth and light set-up to show people how moths are collected and we will have displays about the differences between moths and butterflies."
Most moths are nocturnal, unlike butterflies, which fly during the day. Moths of all sizes, shapes, colors and patterns will be displayed.
One of the moths displayed may well be one of the smallest moths in the world. Bohart Museum senior museum scientist Steve Heydon was sorting through his collection of unmounted insects from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, central Africa, when he noticed a moth about 1mm long, the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
The moth is a new species, yet to be described, Heydon said. “We don't even know what genus it is. We are guessing it is a Nepticulidae since this family contains the smallest moths. Their caterpillars are leafminers--they actually live between the top and bottom layers of a leaf, eating out the middle.”
“It has a wing span of 2 to 2.5mm,” Heydon said. “Insects that have a wing span of 3mm are considered tiny, but this one is really tiny—the smallest moth anyone ever seems to have found.”
Heydon collected the moth in April of 2006 on an expedition to the village of Kikongo Mission, located about 45 minutes by air east of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He caught the moth on forested land, near a river, in a Malaise trap, a mesh tentlike structure commonly used to trap flying insects such as flies and wasps.
Also at the open house, visitors can hold such live specimens as Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a rose-haired tarantula and walking sticks and browse the gift shop, which includes T-shirts, jewelry, insect nets, posters and books, including the newly published children's book, “The Story of the Dogface Butterfly,” written by UC Davis doctoral candidate Fran Keller and illustrated (watercolor and ink) by Laine Bauer, a 2012 UCD graduate.
The 35-page book, geared toward kindergartners through sixth-graders, also includes photos by naturalist Greg Kareofelas of Davis, a volunteer at the Bohart Museum. The book tells the untold story of the California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice), Keller said. Bauer's illustrations depict the life cycle of this butterfly and the children who helped designate it as the California state insect. The net proceeds from the sale of this book go directly to the education, outreach and research programs of the Bohart Museum. The book also can be ordered online.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, a professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly 8 million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.
Bohart officials schedule weekend open houses throughout the academic year. The museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
