Thanks to “pilot” funding from the Gates Foundation for Olfactor Laboratories, Inc. (OLI), some day you could paste on your clothing a small Kite patch designed to keep mosquitoes from sniffing out your existence…for 48 hours.
That funding was part of the larger Gates Foundation fight against malaria and dengue fever; they’ve disbursed more than $2 billion so far, for research and development on “more effective treatments, diagnostics, mosquito-control measures, and a safe and effective malaria vaccine.”
OLI’s research, supported as well by the National Institute of Health, focused on how to keep mosquitoes from catching scent of that tasty CO2 people exhale. When you breathe, mosquitoes up to 150 feet away think “Ooh! A smoothie!” They sniff out other things from closer in from your sweat and skin (“O negative, my favorite!”), but the CO2 seems to be the primary trigger that inspires them to track people down at a distance.
OLI, then, has discovered a non-toxic compound (2,3-butanedione) that creates “ultra-prolonged activation of CO2-detecting neurons in three major disease-transmitting mosquitoes: Anopheles gambiae, Culex quinquefasciatus and A. aegypti.” This burns out the mosquitoes’ sense of smell for a few minutes, disorienting them. (They spent a lot of time watching mosquitoes fly around wind tunnels.)
The researchers have also discovered odors that inhibit CO2-detecting, and some (2-butanone) that smell like the mosquito-world equivalent of a juicy steak on the grill (which could be used as a lure). That there are different kinds of mosquitoes is one reason mosquito repellent isn’t one-smell-fits-all; the discovery of multiple ways to disrupt the mosquito sense of smell means it won’t be as easy for them to evolve resistance.
Still, it’s a long way from the lab to the real world; besides the function of the compounds themselves, there are a host of practical questions to be addressed (the popularity of a patch, how strongly it adheres to clothing). In mid-July, Kite launched a successful Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for a test-patch project in Uganda. Originally the goal was $75,000. They’ve raised more that $545,000 with some 60 hours to go. (Pending U.S. EPA approval, donors at different levels get Kite Patches to try themselves.)
Of course, people in the U.S. are troubled be mosquitoes, too, which may account for that level of interest. As OLI points out, incidences of West Nile Virus in the U.S. are rising. Washington’s Department of Health has a West Nile Virus guide online, as more mosquitoes test positive for the virus. A Silverdale man is seriously ill after picking up the virus on a trip to Arizona. Effective, non-toxic mosquito repellent may not be arriving any too soon.
