Characterising insecticide resistance-associated fitness cost and their compensatory genetic modifiers in major African malaria vectors

Recent successes in malaria control are threatened by increasing levels of insecticide resistance (IR) in the main vectors, requiring insecticide resistance management (IRM) strategies to mitigate this problem. Current IRMs such as rotation/mixture of insecticide with the unrelated mode of action rely on the assumption that fitness costs associated with resistant mosquitoes may reduce the ability of such vectors to survive and transmit the disease. However, resistance-conferring mutations often drive the subsequent evolution of genetic-compensatory modifiers which alleviate the cost of resistance in the vector resulting in resistance aggravation and increase malaria transmission. Unfortunately, fitness costs of resistance and the contribution of modifiers to its alleviation and/or increased IR remain largely uncharacterised, hindering the implementation of suitable IRM strategies. I plan to evaluate the fitness costs of insecticide resistance in the major African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae and detect the underlying modifiers. This will help to parameterise existing transmission dynamics models of malaria to support a better decision-making process for choosing the optimal IRM strategy for this important malaria vector