The Department is working with many industrial partners to help accelerate the development of net tools that will tackle insecticide resistant mosquitoes.
Members of the Vector Department have very strong links with the product development partnership IVCC. Professor Hilary Ranson is a member of IVCC’s ESAC group and members of the department frequently provide technical advise on insecticide resistance and other aspects of vector control. In addition we conduct projects on behalf of IVCC include studies on the durability of insecticide products in the field, characterizing the detoxification pathways of new insecticides in mosquitoes to assess the likelihood of cross resistance and establishing discriminating doses for new public health insecticides.
We maintain a large collection of insecticide resistant mosquito populations from around the world and these are used by LITE to evaluate new insecticides or formulations from industrial or academic partners. The AvecNet project has supported multiple field trials of new insecticides, or new ways of delivering existing insecticides, including a clinical trial of a new combination bednet which contains an insecticide and an insect sterilizing compound.