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Our research


1. Genetics-based strategies to control mosquito-borne diseases:

​Malaria, dengue, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases pose a major global health burden throughout much of the world. Over 600,000 people die each year from malaria, most of whom are children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa, and over 50,000,000 people are infected with dengue each year, ~10,000 of whom die from the disease. For malaria, recent declines in transmission have been seen following wide-scale distribution of bed nets and antimalarial drugs; however, these tools are not expected to be sufficient to eliminate malaria from highly-endemic areas. For dengue, there is no cure or vaccine available that is effective against all four serotypes. Consequently, there is interest in novel strategies to control these diseases, including genetics-based approaches.
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​Genetics-based control strategies can be grouped into two general categories - self-limiting and self-propagating strategies. In self-limiting strategies, introduced transgenes are eliminated from the population over time. The best example of this is a release of genetically sterile males. By mating with wild females after a release, these mosquitoes produce no viable offspring, thus suppressing the mosquito population and hence disease transmission for a sustained period of time. In self-propagating strategies, a gene drive system (a genetic element that biases inheritance in its favor) is used to spread a disease-refractory gene or fitness load into the mosquito population. With the advent of the CRISPR revolution, these systems have become much easier to engineer. Proof-of-principle systems have recently been engineered that could: a) spread malaria-refractory genes into mosquito populations, rendering them unable to transmit the disease to humans; and b) disrupt a gene required for female fertility as they spread, potentially eliminating the mosquito vector entirely.

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Understanding how these gene drive systems spread through populations of mosquitoes requires mathematical models and knowledge of the ecology and environment into which they could be introduced. Our research in this area therefore falls at the interface between molecular biology and ecology. We work with molecular biologists - Professor Anthony James at UC Irvine, Professor Ethan Bier at UC San Diego, and Professor Omar Akbari at UC San Diego - to determine how the constructs they engineer in the lab could be expected to behave in the wild. In doing so, we contribute to the discussion on construct design. We also work with population geneticist Professor Greg Lanzaro and the Vector Genetics Lab at UC Davis to better understand the dispersal patterns of mosquitoes, their genetic variation, seasonal changes in their abundance, and other aspects of their population biology. 

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Our goal is to move this field forward in a way that allows the burden of mosquito-borne diseases to be reduced in a safe and socially responsible way. We serve as modeling lead for the UC Irvine Malaria Initiative to develop CRISPR-based gene drive systems to control Anopheles gambiae, the main African malaria vector. We also work with the Akbari Lab to develop gene drive and remediation systems for Aedes aegypti, the mosquito vector of dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus. We collaborate with the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society to develop CRISPR-based gene drive systems to control Anopheles stephensi, the main malaria vector in urban India, and work with Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Institute to explore the application of CRISPR-based genetic control strategies for insect agricultural pests. We have developed a general modeling framework, MGDrivE (Mosquito Gene Drive Explorer), to address research questions related to these projects. Initial work has focused on molecular biological considerations; however, as the technology moves closer to field application, our research interests are shifting to ecological characterization of mosquito populations, field trial design, and implications for human disease transmission.


2. Landscape genomics to quantify mosquito movement:

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The safety and efficacy of mosquito genetic control strategies are critically dependent on an accurate understanding of mosquito movement patterns. To advance our understanding of the fine-scale movement patterns of mosquitoes, we are exploring the application of landscape genomic methods with Dr. Gordana Rašić of QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia. The particular methods we are interested in - close-kin mark-recapture - involve intensive landscape sampling efforts and subsequent genetic sequencing to the extent required to infer close familial relationships (parent-offspring, full sibling, half sibling, etc.). Observations of pairs of closely-related individuals then provide information on displacement on the timescale of a generation, which collectively may be used to parameterize a predictive model of mosquito movement. The same studies can also be used to infer other demographic parameters, such as population size and mating behavior. We are also investigating alternative genetic approaches to infer mosquito movement at larger spatial scales. This is of interest as mosquitoes are known to be transported by humans over large distances, with important implications for the wide-scale spread and reversibility of gene drive systems.


3. Mathematical modeling to support malaria elimination:

As malaria prevalence declines in many parts of Africa and human populations become increasingly mobile, the dominant factors influencing malaria transmission are beginning to shift. First, spatial heterogeneity in transmission is becoming increasingly relevant as a growing body of research highlights how transmission can be sustained within malaria “hot spots” where there is an abundance of mosquito vectors and/or inadequate protection against them. Second, imported infections are contributing to a higher proportion of local transmission in a growing number of elimination settings. Designing strategies to eliminate malaria from these settings therefore requires an understanding of: a) the hot spots that sustain transmission in these communities; and b) human movement patterns and the populations most likely to import infections. We are working with the Malaria Elimination Initiative at UCSF to address these issues. Our contribution to these projects is to use mathematical models of malaria transmission to prioritize areas where insecticide-based tools, artemisinin combination therapy drugs and novel intervention strategies could help to prevent outbreaks and progress towards local elimination.
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We are particularly interested in mosquito vector control, and are developing a modeling framework, VCOM (Vector Control Optimization Model), in collaboration with Dr. Samson Kiware of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, to explore the potential of a range of new and forthcoming technologies at suppressing mosquito populations. Despite recent successes in reducing malaria transmission with insecticide-treated nets and indoor residual spraying with insecticides, the protective effect of these interventions is limited because they target mosquitoes solely indoors, while mosquito vectors increasingly feed on humans outdoors and also feed on non-human hosts such as cattle. Novel vector control tools are now becoming available that target mosquitoes both indoors and outdoors and at different stages of their life cycle. VCOM is a population-based model that enables us to explore the impact of these interventions by modeling the entire mosquito life cycle and adult feeding cycle and the point at which each intervention has its impact. We are also contributing to another modeling framework, MASH (Modular Analysis and Simulation for human Health), led by Professor David Smith at the University of Washington, that accounts for the spatial heterogeneities that exist in real landscapes.


4. Ethical, social, cultural and regulatory aspects of our work:

We have an active interest in contributing to the ongoing discussion on the ethical, social, cultural and regulatory implications of our work. We advocate for the safe and responsible use of technology to reduce the human disease burden, while respecting the wishes of communities and nation states, the environment, and national and international law. In previous work, we have explored the application of the Cartagena Protocol, the fundamental regulatory document of the United Nations on the international movement of transgenic organisms, to gene-edited mosquitoes, and have conducted surveys of public attitudes on transgenic approaches to mosquito control in sub-Saharan Africa.

Lab news

  • 3/7/2023: Pre-print published on bioRxiv describing mechanical transmission of dengue virus by Aedes aegypti and exploring its potential impact on disease transmission dynamics during outbreaks.​
  • 2/16/2023: Héctor Sánchez presents on machine learning techniques applied to mosquito gene drive emulators at the fifth Bay Area Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease meeting.
  • 2/2/2023: Paper published in Malaria Journal describing mobility patterns of forest-goers in southern Lao PDR of relevance to malaria transmission.
  • 1/12/2023: Paper published in Nature Communications describing conversion of a split-drive into a linked gene drive system, providing a pathway for phased gene drive research and development. See Innovative Genomics Institute news story here: "Researchers create new system for safer gene drive testing and development".
  • 1/10/2023: Welcome to Shuyi Yang who is joining the lab as a Biostatistics MA student working on statistical aspects of the close-kin mark-recapture project to estimate mosquito demographic parameters.
  • 12/15/2022: Paper published in Nature Biotechnology exploring the value of a global gene drive project registry. See UCSD news story here: "Experts from 14 nations discuss global gene drive project registry".
  • 12/12/2022: Paper published in PLoS Computational Biology describing close-kin mark-recapture methods to estimate population size, mortality rates and juvenile development times for mosquitoes.​
  • 10/27/2022: Rodrigo Corder presents on quantifying and preventing Plasmodium vivax recurrences in primaquine-untreated pregnant women at the 20th International Congress for Tropical Medicine and Malaria in Bangkok, Thailand.
  • 10/16/2022: Pre-print published on bioRxiv describing the potential impact of near-term climate change on Wolbachia-based population replacement strategies for dengue control.​
  • 10/14/2022: John Marshall presents on modeling priorities as gene drive mosquito projects transition from lab to field at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.
  • 9/22/2022: John Marshall presents on monitoring needs for gene drive field releases at a pre-meeting to the 8th Annual Conference of the Pan-African Mosquito Control Association in Kigali, Rwanda.
  • 9/8/2022: Héctor Sánchez and Agastya Mondal present the 1st annual MGDrivE webinar on running simulations of genetic control systems for mosquitoes. See webinar materials available on GitHub and recording available on YouTube.
  • 8/30/2022: Pre-print published on bioRxiv describing a novel female-lethal population suppression system, Ifegenia, engineered in the malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae.
  • 8/18/2022: Paper published in GEN Biotechnology describing a CRISPR-based version of the sterile insect technique developed in Drosophila suzukii, an invasive crop pest. See Innovative Genomics Institute news story here: "CRISPR-based technology targets global crop pest".
  • 8/18/2022: Váleri Vásquez presents on Wolbachia-based interventions under climate change at the Annual Meeting for the Ecological Society of America in Montréal, Canada.
  • 8/17/2022: Paper published in Frontiers in Tropical Diseases proposing metrics for simulation-based evaluation of vector control tools in the presence of seasonality and environmental change.
  • 6/13/2022: Welcome to Alan Hu who is joining the lab as an undergrad researcher working on the close-kin mark-recapture project to characterize demographic and dispersal parameters of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
  • 6/1/2022: Lab receives sub-award to contribute to a cost-effectiveness analysis of pgSIT technology to suppress malaria transmission in peri-urban areas of Africa.
  • 5/25/2022: Paper published in Malaria Journal describing recommendations for environmental risk assessment of gene drive applications for malaria control.
  • 5/14/2022: Congratulations and thank you to Natasha Harrison who worked with us as a graduate researcher for the last two years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with an MPH. Natasha's dissertation is on environmental predictors of malaria incidence in São Tomé and Príncipe.
  • 5/14/2022: Congratulations and thank you to Darpa Anireddy who worked with us as an undergrad researcher for the last two years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA degree in Public Health.
  • 5/9/2022: Paper published in PLoS Global Public Health describing a predictive statistical model for dengue outbreak size in Bangladesh.
  • 3/1/2022: Paper published in Frontiers in Tropical Diseases describing the role of models in informing target product profiles for gene drive mosquitoes, with lessons from other malaria and vector control tools.
  • 2/26/2022: Héctor Sánchez presents on MGSurvE, a Python package to optimize surveillance of gene drive-modified mosquitoes, at the virtual fourth Bay Area Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease meeting.
  • 2/8/2022: John Marshall presents on modeling novel genetics-based vector control strategies at the 90th Annual Conference of the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California.
  • 1/12/2022: Paper published in Nature Communications describing an allelic-drive system for reversing insecticide resistance with proof-of-concept in Drosophila melanogaster. See UCSD news story here: "Genetic strategy reverses insecticide resistance".
  • 1/6/2022: Paper published in Frontiers in Genetics describing monitoring needs for gene drive mosquito projects, based on experiences with invasive species and field trials of Wolbachia and sterile male mosquitoes. 
  • 1/1/2022: Book chapter published in Genetically Modified and other Innovative Vector Control Technologies on considerations for field trials of gene drive mosquitoes, focusing on confinement and reversibility criteria.
  • 12/10/2021: Paper published in Nature Communications describing engineering of Cas9 on the Y chromosome of Drosophila, with modeling of its implications for mosquito gene drives. 
  • 12/1/2021: Agastya Mondal presents on "Target product profile modeling for mosquito gene drive systems" at Epidemics 8, the virtual 8th International Conference on Infectious Disease Dynamics.
  • 11/19/2021: Rodrigo Corder presents on the contribution of low-density and asymptomatic infections to Plasmodium vivax transmission in the Amazon at the virtual 70th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
  • 10/26/2021: Lab presents on modeling of gene drives in Aedes aegypti at virtual DARPA Safe Genes Transition Meeting.
  • 10/24/2021: Váleri Vásquez presents on optimizing release schemes for genetics-based mosquito control programs at the annual meeting of INFORMS in Anaheim.
  • 10/21/2021: Book chapter published in Advances in Computational Intelligence: MICAI 2021 on machine learning algorithms applied to US mosquito count data.
  • 10/21/2021: Agastya Mondal presents on modeling to inform target product profiles for gene drive mosquitoes at the Center for Computational Biology Retreat at UC Berkeley.
  • 9/15/2021: Welcome to Lillian Weng, Xingli Yu, Joanna Yoo and Ayden Salazar who are joining the lab as undergrad researchers through the Data Science Discovery Program working on the mosquito gene drive machine learning library.
  • 9/10/2021: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a CRISPR-based version of the sterile insect technique developed in Aedes aegypti, with elimination of Ae. aegypti modeled in Tetiaroa, French Polynesia. See Innovative Genomics Institute news story here: "New technology designed to genetically control disease-spreading mosquitoes".
  • 9/7/2021: Paper published in Parasites & Vectors describing household-level risk factors for Aedes aegypti pupal density in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
  • 8/30/2021: Welcome to Reine Ngnonsse and Kendall Dimson who are joining the lab as undergrad researchers working on datasets and analysis pipelines to better understand malaria and arbovirus transmission at potential field sites.
  • 8/22/2021: Pre-print published on bioRxiv describing insights from genomics and modeling regarding the potential elimination of Aedes aegypti from its southern margin in Australia.
  • 8/13/2021: Huge congratulations and thank you to Dr. Jared Bennett who has worked with us as a graduate researcher for the last four years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in Biophysics and a designated emphasis in Computational Biology. Jared's dissertation is entitled "In silico exploration and analysis of gene drive efficacy". His work has transformed our approach to gene drive modeling and close-kin simulation and he will be very much missed!
  • 7/26/2021: Paper published in Evolutionary Applications reviewing gene drive strategies for agricultural pest control.
  • 7/26/2021: Lab receives sub-award to model the potential use of genetically sterile male mosquitoes to control mosquito-borne diseases in Hawai'i. See EPA news story here: "EPA awards $750,000 to UC San Diego to help safely develop biotechnology used against mosquito-borne disease".
  • 7/22/2021: Welcome to Eileen Jeffrey Gutiérrez who is joining the lab as a postdoc working on monitoring and surveillance modeling of mosquito vectors of malaria and dengue fever.
  • 7/20/2021: Paper published in Nature Scientific Reports describing population size estimation of seasonal forest-going populations of relevance to malaria transmission in southern Laos.
  • 7/19/2021: Paper published in Nature Communications reviewing Wolbachia and genetic engineering-based approaches to control mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria.
  • 7/15/2021: Welcome to Rodrigo Corder who is joining the lab as a postdoc working on gene drive modeling and malaria transmission in São Tomé and Príncipe.
  • 7/11/2021: Lab research featured in Daily Cal: "Part of 'master plan': Researchers receive grant to fund research on malaria".
  • 7/1/2021: Lab receives $800,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop target product profiles and monitoring and surveillance protocols for genetic strategies for malaria vector control. See news story here: "Marshall Lab receives Gates grant for genetics-based malaria mosquito control".
  • 6/20/2021: Paper published in BioEssays describing the resilience of population modification strategies for malaria vector control to observed levels of gene drive resistance alleles.
  • 6/2021: John Marshall presents on "Modeling priorities as gene drive mosquito projects transition from lab to field" at the virtual 2021 Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology and the virtual Interdisciplinary Workshop on Synthetic Gene Drives.
  • 6/13/2021: Congratulations to Dr. Francois Rerolle who has worked with us for the last five years and has now graduated from UCSF with a PhD in Epidemiology & Biostatistics. Francois' dissertation is entitled "Importance, size and mobility of forest-going populations for malaria elimination in Lao People’s Democratic Republic".
  • 6/11/2021: Welcome to Elijah Bartolome who is joining the lab as a recent UC Berkeley graduate working on machine learning regression and classification models for mosquito gene drive datasets.
  • 6/2/2021: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a synthetic underdominant system for reversible population replacement. See UCSD news story here: "Synthetic SPECIES developed for use as a confinable gene drive".
  • 5/25/2021: Lab presents on modeling gene editing innovations for vector control at virtual DARPA Safe Genes Program Review.
  • 5/21/2021: Paper published in PLoS Computational Biology describing our MGDrivE 2 modeling framework for the spread of gene drives incorporating seasonality and epidemiological dynamics.
  • 5/15/2021: Congratulations and thank you to Ashley Zhang and Chris De Leon who worked with us as undergrad researchers for the last year and have now graduated from UC Berkeley with BS degrees in Computer Science and Statistics.
  • 3/30/2021: John Marshall presents on the current status of genetic strategies for mosquito-borne disease control at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Brown Bag Series.
  • 3/17/2021: Paper published in Malaria Journal modeling the potential impact of attractive targeted sugar baits (ATSBs) on malaria transmission in African settings based on a recent entomological field trial conducted in Mali.
  • 3/9/2021: Paper published in eLife exploring the associations between deforestation and malaria incidence in Laos.
  • 3/5/2021: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a variety of split-drive designs in Drosophila that limit or extend drive potential and confinability. See UCSD news story here: "New split-drive system puts scientists in the (gene) driver seat".
  • 3/5/2021: Paper published in eLife describing a home-and-rescue gene drive design to spread desirable genes into populations while limiting accumulation of resistance alleles.
  • 3/3/2021: Yogita Sharma presents on stochastic reaction-diffusion models of gene drive spread at the Computational and Genomic Biology Retreat at UC Berkeley.
  • 2/27/2021: Paper published in Parasites & Vectors describing the role of a new genotype of dengue virus in driving a large outbreak in Guangzhou, China.
  • 2/2/2021: Lab presents at the virtual annual meeting of the UCI Malaria Initiative.
  • 1/26/2021: Congratulations to Váleri Vásquez who has been awarded a Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship to support her work on optimization of mosquito genetic control tools.
  • 12/21/2020: Paper published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene describing the relation-based model as a framework for engagement for field trials of genetically modified mosquito vectors.
  • 12/21/2020: Pre-print published on bioRxiv describing a new agent-based simulation algorithm for epidemiological models.
  • 12/18/2020: Paper published in Science describing core commitments for field trials of gene drive organisms. See UCSD news story here: "Scientists set a path for field trials of gene drive organisms".
  • 12/18/2020: Huge congratulations and thank you to Dr. Sean Wu who has worked with us as a graduate researcher for the last five years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in Epidemiology and a designated emphasis in Computational Biology. Sean's dissertation is entitled "Stochastic models for the control of mosquito-borne pathogens". His work has been central to the development of modeling frameworks in our lab and he will be very much missed!
  • 12/17/2020: Congratulations to Váleri Vásquez and colleagues who have been awarded a Career Development Network Seed Grant to support the creation of design-conscious content for sharing the best practice of data science.
  • 11/18/2020: Tomás León and John Marshall present on modeling Anopheles gambiae movement and Aedes aegypti genetic control strategies at the virtual 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
  • 11/16/2020: Héctor Sánchez presents on modeling release scenarios for gene drive mosquitoes on islands at the virtual 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
  • 11/12/2020: Váleri Vásquez presents on optimizing genetics-based public health interventions at the virtual annual meeting of INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences).
  • 11/11/2020: Lab research featured in Daily Cal: "Research team led by UC Berkeley professor receives $1.7M grant for mosquito migration study".
  • 11/3/2020: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a gene drive system with a novel "recoded" architecture engineered in Anopheles stephensi, the main urban malaria vector in India. See UCI news story here: "UC researchers pioneer more effective method of blocking malaria transmission in mosquitoes".
  • 10/24/2020: Our new modeling framework, MGDrivE 2, is published on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) and is available as an R package on GitHub.
  • 9/21/2020: Lab receives $1.7 million R01 award from the National Institutes of Health to develop novel landscape genomics-based methods to study the fine-scale movement patterns of Aedes aegypti mosquito disease vectors. See news story here: "NIH grant to support research on mosquito movement and control".
  • 9/21/2020: Lab receives sub-award to work on National Institutes of Health R01 project on public engagement for gene drive technology led by Professor Cinnamon Bloss. 
  • 9/18/2020: Paper published in Molecular Cell describing a variety of genetic systems - ERACRs and e-CHACRs - for remediating gene drives from the environment. See UCSD news story here: "Biologists create new genetic systems to neutralize gene drives".
  • 8/31/2020: Welcome to Ameek Bindra and Daniel López who are joining the lab as undergrad researchers working on analyzing mosquito ecology and gene drive datasets for the MGDrivE project.
  • 8/19/2020: Welcome to Agastya Mondal who is joining the lab as an Epidemiology PhD student working on models of mosquito-borne disease transmission.
  • 8/19/2020: Welcome to Darpa Anireddy, Chris De Leon, Ashley Zhang and Priscilla Zhang who are joining the lab as undergrad researchers working on tracking malaria cases and machine learning algorithms for the MGDrivE project.
  • ​8/4/2020: Welcome to Natasha Harrison who is joining the lab as an Epidemiology & Biostatistics MPH student working on statistical analyses of malaria surveillance data from São Tomé and Príncipe.
  • 8/3/2020:  Váleri Vásquez presents on novel genetic constructs and their sensitivity to environmental change at the virtual annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
  • 7/29/2020:  Váleri Vásquez presents on disease vector dynamics under environmental change at JuliaCon 2020.
  • 7/27/2020: Lab presents at virtual annual DARPA PI meeting on gene editing innovation for vector control.
  • 6/26/2020: Paper published in Global Public Health on translating gene drive science from English to Spanish to promote linguistic diversity in community and stakeholder engagement.
  • 6/10/2020: Lab participates in #ShutDownSTEM and condemns racism and all forms of white supremacy including police brutality.
  • 6/5/2020: The UC Berkeley School of Public Health publishes a free online course on "Managing the COVID-19 Pandemic" with a module on mathematical modeling presented by John Marshall.
  • 5/20/2020: Welcome to Hao Wang who is joining the lab as a Graduate Student Researcher working on monitoring and surveillance needs for genetics-based mosquito control trials.
  • 5/16/2020: Congratulations and thank you to Thien-An Ha who worked with us as a graduate researcher for the last year and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with an MPH. Thien-An's dissertation is on household risk factors for Aedes aegypti mosquito proliferation in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
  • 5/16/2020: Congratulations and thank you to Maya Shen and Gillian Chu who worked with us as undergrad researchers for the last two years and have now graduated from UC Berkeley with BS degrees in Computer Science and Bioengineering.
  • 5/12/2020: Paper published in BMC Biology modeling the introduction of two threshold-dependent gene drive systems into a structured Aedes aegypti population that could satisfy the requirements of field trials in terms of confinement and reversibility.​
  • 4/27/2020: Váleri Vásquez is a panelist for the Berkeley Conversations event, "Climate change and COVID-19: Can this crisis shift the paradigm?"​
  • 4/22/2020: Paper published in PLoS Computational Biology describing  MBITES (Mosquito Bout-based Individual-based Transmission Ecology Simulator), a new individual-based framework for modeling for mosquito-borne disease.
  • 3/9/2020: Paper published in Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases on efficacy and safety criteria for advancing gene drive-modified mosquitoes to field testing.
  • 2/29/2020: Yogita Sharma and Tomás León present at the second Bay Area Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease meeting at UC Berkeley.
  • 2/17/2020: Paper published in Issues in Science and Technology on the need for policy-makers and regulators to respond to the latest developments in gene drive research.
  • 2/7/2020: Paper published in Journal of Experimental Biology reviewing recent developments in engineering gene drives for population control.
  • 1/29/2020: Lab presents at the annual meeting of the UCI Malaria Initiative at UC Irvine.
  • 1/21/2020: Paper published in eLife describing the first split-gene drive system engineered in Aedes aegypti, the primary vector of dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses. 
  • 1/17/2020: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a transcomplementing gene drive system designed for safe laboratory study, with potential benefits for field deployment.
  • 1/8/2020: Our collaborators with the UC Irvine Malaria Initiative and Tata Institute for Genetics and Society are profiled in a New York Times Magazine feature story.
  • 1/8/2020: Yogita Sharma's work is listed in a Nature news story reading list!
  • 1/1/2020: Congratulations to Héctor Sánchez who was accepted into the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (National System of Researchers) in Mexico today!
  • 12/20/2019: Congratulations and thank you to Sarafina Smith who worked with us as an undergrad researcher for two years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Computer Science.
  • 12/19/2019: Paper published in PLoS Genetics describing cage experiments of a CRISPR-based gene drive system in Anopheles stephensi, the main urban malaria vector in India.
  • 12/15/2019: Thien-An Ha receives scholarship to attend the Clinic on Dynamical Approaches to Infectious Disease Data in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
  • 12/10/2019: John Marshall presents on mathematical modeling of malaria at the University of São Tomé in São Tomé and Príncipe.
  • 12/4/2019: Tomás León presents on modeling of Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae mosquito ecology at the 7th International Conference on Infectious Disease Dynamics in Charleston, SC.
  • 11/27/2019: Paper published in BMC Infectious Diseases describing the incidence and distribution of dengue cases in Guangzhou, China, the dengue epicenter in mainland China.
  • 11/21/2019: Sean Wu presents on the MBITES malaria modeling framework at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in National Harbor, MD.
  • 11/4/2019: Héctor Sánchez presents at the annual symposium of the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society at UC San Diego.
  • 11/1/2019: John Marshall presents on "Data sharing in gene drive research: Experiences of a mathematical modeler" at the Gene Drive Research Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
  • 10/30/2019: Paper published in Frontiers in Genetics reviewing strategies to minimize evolution of pathogens in response to anti-pathogen effector genes in vector population replacement strategies.
  • 10/28/2019: Congratulations to Váleri Vásquez who passed her PhD qualifying exam today!
  • 10/25/2019: Yogita Sharma and Jared Bennett present their work on close-kin mark-recapture and modeling of gene drive laboratory experiments at the Computational and Genomic Biology Retreat at UC Berkeley.
  • 10/18/2019: Thien-An Ha presents her summer project on mosquito biting rates near cemeteries in Borbón, Ecuador at the Global Health Annual Fellows Symposium at UC Berkeley.
  • 10/16/2019: Paper published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution describing our MGDrivE modeling framework for the spread of gene drives through spatially-explicit mosquito populations.
  • 10/12/2019: Váleri Vásquez receives an NSF scholarship to attend the International Conference on Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Populations in Biological Systems at Arizona State University, AZ.
  • 10/11/2019: Congratulations to Sean Wu who passed his PhD qualifying exam today!
  • 10/10/2019: Welcome to Rodrigo Careaga, a Masters student at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, who is visiting the lab as part of our CITRIS project to develop machine learning algorithms to predict mosquito densities.
  • 9/24/2019: Héctor Sánchez and Sean Wu represent lab at meeting of the Malaria Modeling Consortium in Seattle, WA.
  • 9/6/2019: Lab research featured in UCSF News video discussing the prospects for global malaria eradication by 2050.
  • 9/2/2019: Response published in Nature Communications describing application of a novel CRISPR-based version of the sterile insect technique to suppression of Aedes aegypti populations.
  • 8/21/2019: Welcome to Joshua Yeung and Yunwen Ji who are joining the lab as undergrad researchers working on analyzing mosquito datasets for the MGDrivE project.
  • 8/14/2019: Tomás León gives talk on a maximum likelihood method for analyzing Aedes aegypti mark-release-recapture data at the Annual Meeting for the Ecological Society of America in Louisville, KY.
  • 7/29/2019: Jared Bennett and Héctor Sánchez represent lab at DARPA enhanced data sharing meeting in Arlington, VA.
  • 7/22/2019: Sean Wu attends meeting of the Modular Analysis and Simulation for Health (MASH) project at IBM Research in Nairobi, Kenya.
  • 7/16/2019: Lab presents research on mosquito population dynamics and control at INSPI (Instituto Nacional de Investigación en Salud Pública) in Quito, Ecuador.
  • 7/12/2019: Our modeling framework, the Mosquito Gene Drive Explorer (MGDrivE), is published on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).
  • 6/19/2019: John Marshall gives talk on mathematical insights into CRISPR-based gene drive at the Arthropod-borne Diseases Symposium at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco.
  • 6/11/2019: Váleri Vásquez and John Marshall present at the Gene Drive Modeling Conference held by the ILSI Research Foundation in Washington, DC.
  • 6/5/2019: Welcome to Sanjay Lamba who is joining the lab as a postdoc working on gene drive modeling projects in collaboration with the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society.
  • 5/24/2019: Jared Bennett presents on "Simulation of genetics-based strategies for mosquito control and implications of density-dependence" at the Conference on Computational and Mathematical Population Dynamics in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
  • 5/21/2019: Congratulations and thank you to Biyonka Liang who worked with us as an undergrad researcher for two and a half years and has now graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Statistics.
  • 5/20/2019: Váleri Vásquez presents on "Informing Risk Assessment with the Mosquito Gene Drive Explorer (MGDrivE)" for the International Life Sciences Institute Gene Drive Modeling Webimar Series.
  • 5/8/2019: John Marshall and Héctor Sánchez represent inter-UC DARPA Safe Genes team at the Phase 2 Kick-off Meeting in Bethesda, MD.
  • 5/6/2019: Héctor Sánchez presents on threshold-dependent drives at the Safe Genes Data Needs Meeting in Bethesda, MD.
  • 5/6/2019: Tomás León  and John Marshall represent the UCI Malaria Initiative at the Data Needs for Decision Making on Gene Drive-Modified Mosquitoes Workshop in Newport Beach, CA.
  • 4/27/2019: Váleri Vásquez is a panelist at the second annual Latinxs and the Environment Summit at UC Berkeley.
  • 4/24/2019: John Marshall represents the UCI Malaria Initiative at the at the Gene Drive Mosquito Monitoring and Surveillance Workshop in Washington, DC.
  • 4/13/2019: Lab presents research on gene-edited mosquitoes at Cal Day at UC Berkeley.
  • 4/1/2019: Congratulations to Thien-An Ha who has been awarded a Center for Global Public Health Fellowship to characterize mosquito habitat and dengue transmission in Ecuador this summer.
  • 3/12/2019: Paper published in BMC Genomics describing the population genetic structure of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in California, with implications for their invasion of the state.
  • 3/12/2019: John Marshall gives talk on the ability of CRISPR-based gene drive to control mosquito-borne diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
  • 3/4/2019: Welcome to Sejal Mohata who is joining the lab as an undergrad researcher working on machine learning approaches to identifying landscape features relevant to potential field trials of genetics-based mosquito interventions.
  • 3/2/2019: Tomás León presents at the first Bay Area Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease meeting at Stanford.
  • 2/25/2019: John Marshall represents the UCI Malaria Initiative at the at the Target Product Profile Workshop for Gene Drive Mosquitoes in London, UK.
  • 2/12/2019: Sean Wu and Héctor Sánchez present at meeting of the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) and Modular Analysis and Simulation for Health (MASH) projects in Miami, FL.
  • 1/2019: John Marshall gives talk on the ability of CRISPR-based gene drive to control mosquito-borne diseases at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UC Berkeley/UCSF Innovative Genomics Institute.
  • 1/31/2019: Lab presents at the annual meeting of the UCI Malaria Initiative at UC Irvine.
  • ​1/23/2019: Welcome to Maya Shen who is joining the lab as an undergrad researcher working on target product profiles for gene drive systems intended for malaria control.
  • 1/16/2019: Welcome to Thien-An Ha who is joining the lab as an Epidemiology & Biostatistics MPH student working on predicting mosquito density in Ecuador as a function of environmental covariates.
  • 1/14/2019: Héctor Sánchez represents lab at meeting of the Malaria Modeling Consortium in Basel, Switzerland.
  • 1/8/2019: Paper published in Nature Communications describing a novel CRISPR-based version of the sterile insect technique that mathematical modeling predicts will be highly efficient at Aedes aegypti population suppression. See news story here: "New CRISPR-based technology developed to control pests with precision-guided genetics".
  • 12/28/2018: Lab receives NVIDIA GPU Grant to support the development of machine learning algorithms to predict mosquito densities using data from the California Vector-Borne Disease Surveillance System.
  • 12/12/2018: Lab research showcased in 75th Anniversary Issue of Berkeley Health: "To think like a mosquito: Berkeley researchers battle diseases from malaria to Zika".
  • 11/12/2018: Paper published in PLoS NTDs proposing a new metric for elimination potential of parasitic diseases, such as Schistosomiasis, subjected to mass drug administration.
  • 11/11/2018: John Marshall presents on "MGDrivE: A simulation framework for gene drive in spatially-explicit mosquito populations" at the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Vancouver, Canada.
  • 11/10/2018: Sean Wu, Héctor Sánchez and Jared Bennett present on "Spatio-temporal force of infection modeling" and "MGDrivE: The original trilogy" at the UC Berkeley Computational and Genomic Biology Retreat in Point Reyes.
  • 11/7/2018: Lab receives CITRIS-ITESM Seed Funding, in collaboration with Prof. Edgar Emmanuel Vallejo of Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, to develop machine learning algorithms to predict mosquito densities and vector-borne disease incidence in Ecuador and Paraguay.
  • 11/6/2018: Sean Wu presents on "Spatio-temporal force of infection modeling" at the Second SMBE Satellite Workshop on Genome Evolution in Pathogen Transmission and Disease in Kyoto, Japan.
  • 10/31/2018: Héctor Sánchez and Tomás León present on "MGDrivE: A simulation framework for gene drive in spatially-explicit mosquito populations and its application to threshold-dependent systems​" at the 67th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, LA.
  • 10/15/2018: Welcome to Victor Ferman who is joining the lab as a postdoc working on our gene drive modeling framework and statistical and machine learning methods to inform mosquito habitat distribution.
  • 10/6/2018: Héctor Sánchez and Jared Bennett present on "MGDrivE: Its application to release optimization, and confinement in an Australian setting" and "Complete models of disease-transmitting insects" at the Northern California Computational Biology Symposium at UCSF.
  • 9/27/2018: John Marshall gives a talk entitled "Fighting mosquito-borne diseases with genomics, machine learning and likelihood functions" at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Brown Bag Series.
  • 9/20/2018: Congratulations to Jared Bennett who passed his PhD qualifying exam today!
  • 9/17/2018: Welcome to Gillian Chu who is joining the lab as an undergrad researcher working on landscape analysis and clustering algorithms.
  • 9/12/2018: Lab represents inter-UC DARPA Safe Genes team at the Gene Drive Research Forum in Montréal, Canada.
  • 9/4/2018: Welcome to Graham Northrup who is joining the lab as a Computational Biology PhD student working on the design of confineable homing-based gene drive systems.
  • 9/3/2018: Héctor Sánchez and Sean Wu present on "MGDrivE: A simulation framework for gene drive releases in spatially explicit mosquito populations" and "MICRO: An eco-epidemiological agent based framework for the modeling of mosquito-borne pathogens" at IDDconf 2018, Cumbria, UK.
  • 8/31/2018: Welcome to Tomás León who is joining the lab as a postdoc working on improving the environmental and climatic realism of our modeling frameworks.
  • 8/2018: Váleri Vásquez presents on dynamic programming related to the MGDrivE modeling framework at the International HPC Summer School in Ostrava, Czech Republic and the Supercomputer Center Summer Institute in San Diego.
  • 7/31/2018: Henry Stewart Talk published on lab research: "Gene drive: What is possible at the population level with currently-available molecular components?"
  • 7/13/2018: John Marshall gives a talk entitled "Can malaria, dengue and Zika be controlled by CRISPR-based gene drive?" at QIMR Berghofer in Brisbane, Australia.
  • 7/10/2018: John Marshall presents on "MGDrivE: A simulation framework for gene drive in spatially-explicit mosquito populations" at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology at the University of Sydney, Australia.
  • 6/19/2018: Our modeling framework, the Mosquito Gene Drive Explorer (MGDrivE), is now available as an R package on GitHub.
  • 6/1/2018: Welcome to Yi Li who is joining the lab as a visiting undergrad researcher from Ohio State University working on statistical approaches to infer mosquito movement patterns based on kinship data.
  • 6/1/2018: Welcome to Váleri Vásquez who is joining the lab as an Energy and Resources Group PhD student working on the application of dynamic programming to optimal release strategies.
  • 5/29/2018: Paper published in PNAS describing a CRISPR-Cas9-based gene drive system that interferes with the sex determination pathway in Drosophila and could be adapted as a population suppression system for the medfly.
  • 5/29/2018: Lab present
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