What if you could make disease-transmitting mosquitoes unhappy without killing them or other organisms? What if you could convince them to live away from humans. The DREAM Lab might just have the answer! Letícia’s latest paper shows that there is a natural limit to how smooth a surface can be before mosquitoes just can’t grip it. And if they can’t grip it, they’ll go live elsewhere. Now imagine painting household surfaces with a coating that is below this roughness threshold. While it is still early days, we’re hoping this research helps pave the way towards lessening mosquito-borne illness transmission, such as malaria, dengue, zika, etc.
Check out Complete Inhibition of Vertical Mosquito Landing through Topographical Surface Design, published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Great job Leti!
