Current Tri-Institutional MD-PhD student, Margaret Herre, has received an F30 award from the National Institutes of Health - National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH/NIDCD) for her project "Hormone regulation of olfactory sensory neuron function in the Zika vector Aedes aegypti".
Margaret, a fifth year student, is conducting her research the Vosshall Lab at Rockefeller University. Her project focuses on understanding the role of steroid hormone signaling in olfactory sensory neurons in mosquitoes. Blood-feeding disease vectors, including Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, use olfactory cues to locate and bite human hosts. Attraction to human hosts is not constant, but is strongly suppressed after a blood meal.
Her work will characterize how steroid hormone signaling pathways suppress host-seeking drive after a blood-meal as an entry point to understanding mosquito olfaction, and will inform new strategies to prevent the spread of deadly diseases carried by Aedes aegypti such as Zika, dengue fever, chikungunya, and yellow fever.
Margeret Herre