 My research question focuses on malaria. Malaria is a human infectious disease which is in contrast to tuberculosis, HIV or to COVID-19, can only be transmitted from one human to another by a little mosquito. So mosquito can take a blood from an infected individual, develop the parasite inside during the period of three weeks, and then it can inject a new form of the parasite into the next human. So the question we ask what happens in mosquito during these three weeks and how it supports parasite development. In the laboratory we employ a series of methods to understand how mosquitoes transmit malaria. That involves population biology studies in the field where we can trap mosquitoes and bring them to the lab and to analyze using mathematical approaches the composition of the mosquito populations in the wild. And it's interesting because there is more than one single vector in the population. So in many times and often we can find different vectors located in the same population. And the question is which one of them is involved in malaria transmission. Then we could look at the genetics of these vectors and see the differences in the genetic composition and then we can ask the question if with this genetic difference using experimental approaches in the labs we could maybe understand better what happens in the field. Then in the lab we could use some tools which allow us to inactivate particular genes of interest and in fact experimentally mosquitoes with plasmodium parasites which transmit malaria and see how that affects parasite development within the mosquito. If this gene has an effect then we can go back to the field and set up a new study and specifically ask the question how different mosquito populations express this particular gene and would one population be a more expressing gene which allows better malaria transmission in the field. So in principle we use these iterations of the population biology studies in the field and laboratory studies in the lab to understand the question what are the mechanics of malaria transmission. So what we found out in the lab was that there is a particular gene which is conserved from bacteria to animals and of course is present in the mosquitoes and which is involved in the immune response regulation of mosquitoes. This gene encodes for a protein which can directly bind to pathogens such as bacteria, fungi and what we found out that it also recognizes the parasite inside the mosquito when they go through the mid-gatapithelia of these mosquitoes and during the infection. So if we eliminate this gene in the mosquito what we see in the laboratory that the mosquitoes start to have huge numbers of parasites and that was very interesting because that was just by eliminating one gene that we can convert mosquitoes from susceptible to highly susceptible. Now the question which we asked was whether this gene has different forms in natural populations. For that we went back to Africa and looked at these different forms of this gene in different areas in West, Central and Eastern Africa and what we found out that indeed different forms exist in these populations and that we find that in areas with a high transmission there are really very particular forms of this gene. So we next asked the question whether we could go into single location in Africa with the populations of mosquitoes which will have differences in this composition of this gene and compare the transmission capacity of these mosquitoes. And so we found such a location in the village close to Bamako in Africa and we had a very good collaboration with our Malian colleagues from the University of Bamako who established a site of collections of mosquitoes during the whole rainy season over two years. Why was it important? Because to understand the dynamic of transmission or what we understand by that number of mosquitoes which would have infected with plasmodium in this area and to use later on mathematical approaches we had to have a time series of collections which would have very dense data set. So we collected mosquitoes every day over a period of three months. After that we looked at the parasite presence in these mosquitoes by molecular methods. We looked at the form of the gene which I was talking previously which we were think connecting to the efficiency of a malaria infection in mosquitoes and what we found out that it is usually considered that the major determinant of malaria abundance in a particular area is the number of mosquitoes present in this particular area. Which is true because if there are no mosquitoes there will be no malaria transmission, right? But if there are mosquitoes what's enough to transmit malaria? What our data showed that it was not really the number of mosquitoes in the area but the composition of this mosquito populations. So if there were more mosquitoes which will have a gene which would not support parasite development then the numbers of infected mosquitoes went down. And on the contrary if there were mosquitoes in the population which will have a susceptible form of this gene, right? Which will be very good in transmitting malaria the number of infected mosquitoes in the population increased. So in another words what we found out that the more of this refractory mosquitoes in the populations fewer cases of malaria will be in the area. So what was important in this study is the understanding that mosquito populations are complex and they contain species which are good and not so good in malaria transmission. Why is this important? It's important first of all for the dramatic decisions of building dams or river management in Africa and this is of course of high importance for the local population and the always question is if you increase the water body in this case you will attract more mosquitoes and increase malaria transmission in the area. However our study shows that that not always true and you could really monitor this and build this dams in the areas where you have vectors which are not good transmitters of malaria. Secondary this study is important because the understanding that you have to target the particular species if you want to interfere with malaria transmission and not with all mosquitoes. So you can use very selective methods of gene drive or genetic engineering and target the species which are really responsible for malaria transmission in the area and leave other mosquito species untouched and fulfilling their ecological functions. Finally this is also important for this climate change scenario where mosquito populations with a warming up of planet will probably extend and change their localizations in the world and to understand how is it dangerous for us as humans to be exposed to this mosquito populations which could transmit and bring malaria back to Europe. So the outlook of this study is highlighting the importance of bringing more mathematical approaches which are very widely used in economics to understand the dynamics of mosquito populations in the malaria endemic areas. We also understand better that we need to collect better samples of mosquitoes and to involve more our colleagues from African countries to be engaged into this project and really to understand what happens in this area of high malaria transmission and how we could prevent malaria transmission by mosquitoes. Our aspiration is that we can contribute to the arsenal of the tools which will allow us to control malaria and it's the best to eradicate this disease from the face of the world.