Major Grant Awarded to Professor Tripet to support his work on Malaria Vectors
A major grant from the Open Philanthropy Project, awarded to the Target Malaria consortium, will support Prof. Tripet's translational research focussing on male mosquito mating behaviour and its application to novel vector control technologies.
The Open Philanthropy Project recently announced the award of a $17,500,000 grant to the Target Malaria consortium to help the project develop and prepare for the potential deployment of gene-drive technologies in mosquitoes to help eliminate malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, if feasible, ethical, safe, approved by the regulatory authorities, and supported by the affected communities. The grant will support a number of critical research programmes complementary to existing Target Malaria activities. About $2,300,000 have been allocated to the development of novel methods for rearing, transporting, and releasing modified mosquitoes that aim to ensure that the gene-drive constructs will be introduced into natural populations in an efficient manner. This four-year programme will be headed by CAEP director and behavioural ecologist, Prof. Frederic Tripet, Keele University, in collaboration with Prof. Austin Burt, Imperial College London, and Dr Fred Aboagye-Antwi at the University of Ghana in Accra.
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