News

"Addressing the Threat: Why We Should be Testing Cattle for Theileria orientalis in NJ" by Dina Fonseca in the Spring edition of the brand new NJ Ruminant Report newsletter (PDF)
Do mosquitoes transmit Covid-19? NO!
Ticks have become an important vector to consider, and so May is Tick Awareness Month! Here are some local activities.
Dina Fonseca has joined the Global Health Institute at Rutgers, which works to remove disparities in health care throughout the world. Mosquito-borne disease transmission represents a significant route to human illness. This significant route is so large that mosquitoes are often classified as the "most dangerous animal" on the planet. New technologies in control and education are one way to reduce the disparity in who is likely to be exposed to arboviruses.
What we do: team-up both locally and globally.
Apparently Haemaphysalis longicornis, the invasive tick found in Hunterdon County last year, has reappeared. More information on this unique, parthenogenic large mammal feeder can be found here on the Fonseca Lab news feed. also, more extensive information can be found under the Research tab as well as the Center's original blog about it's discovery and this page of information.
Tick Blitz is coming!
See the New Fonseca Lab website!
Pesticide Recertification Course (PDF) will be offered in October!
Mosquito prevention tip news clip on KYW 1060 Philadelphia, with Dina Fonseca
Asian Tiger Mosquito: Areawide Control and Biology - new website!
July 22-30 is National Moth Week! Click on the link to learn how you can support, through citizen science, this wonderful and needed group of animals!
8 May 2017 - Pesticide resistance, particularly among those wide-ranging and anthropogenically moved mosquitoes such as the asian tiger mosquito, are particularly important to understand. Read more about the Center's efforts in this here.
Ehrlichiosis may be underreported in New Jersey. (PDF).
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month (PDF).
Read all about it - First evidence that host-targeted bait boxes alone can be used to control ticks (PDF)!
The 4th Annual Conservation Immersion Seminar will take place 10 May, 2017 in Washington DC. Dr. Fonseca will be on a panel to discuss how genomics can change conservation. Click here for more info and registration (PDF).
Dr. Fonseca will attend a Strategic meeting of the Worldwide Insecticide resistance Network (WIN) (PDF) that will be held in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, from May 04-05, 2017. This meeting is supported by the WHO Research & Training program on Tropical Diseases (TDR) and the Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and the US-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC).
Dr. Fonseca is the PI of a proposal entitled “Predicting the evolution of vector-borne disease dynamics in a changing world” that was top rated in the NSF DEB Ecology of Infectious Diseases panel (five “excellent" and one "very-good") and recommended for funding. Using Next-Generation genomics we will generate one of the first comprehensive datasets detailing the evolutionary potential of the major players in a complex multi-host disease system: avian malaria in endemic Hawaiian birds transmitted by invasive mosquitoes. Our results will help mitigate the anthropogenic impacts associated with invasive species and climate change, and can be translated directly into practical management recommendations. This 4 year $2,498,876 project is slated to start on July 2017.
A grant on"Climate Change, Nuisance Mosquito Populations, and Long-term Resilience of Coastal Salt Marsh Systems" was awarded to the Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis (CRSSA), the Center for Vector Biology (CVB) and the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) plus in collaboration with state and county mosquito agencies.