A University of California, Davis doctoral student who researches insecticide resistance in an African malaria mosquito has received a statewide "new investigator" award for her research.

Lisa Reimer, a graduate student in medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro's vector genetics lab, is the winner of the 2006 William C. Reeves New Investigator Award, sponsored by the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California (MVCAC) and coordinated by the UC Mosquito Research Program.

Reimer received $1,000 at the recent MVCAC conference in Reno. Lanzaro, who directs both the UC Mosquito Research Program, a statewide program affiliated with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the UC Davis Center for Vector-Borne Diseases, presented the award.

The Reeves New Investigator Award memorializes world-renowned medical entomologist William C. Reeves (1916-2004) of the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. It is awarded to the best scientific paper submitted and presented at the annual MVCAC conference.

Reimer is the lead author of a scientific paper published last December in Insect Molecular Biology on the distribution of insecticide resistance genes in Anopheles gambiae. The researchers found that on Bioko Island, located off the west coast of Africa, near Cameroon, subpopulations of A. gambiae exhibit very different levels of resistance in response to pyrethroids, insecticides commonly used to kill mosquitoes.

A. gambiae is the principal vector of malaria, which kills some 2.5 to 3 million people a year worldwide, primarily in Africa.

The article, titled "An Unusual Distribution of the kdr Gene Among Populations of A. gambiae on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea," was co-authored by post-doctorate researchers Frederic Tripet, Michel Slotman, both formerly with the Lanzaro Lab; Andrew Spielman, professor of Tropical Public Health Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health; Etienne Fondjo of National Malaria Control Program, Cameroon; and Lanzaro.

"Kdr," also known as knockdown resistance, refers to a mutation involved in pyrethroid resistance.

"Pyrethroids are the fastest-growing class of insecticides and are used worldwide for both agriculture and vector control," Reimer said. "The World Health Organization ranks mosquito resistance to insecticides as the most outstanding technical problem impeding the development of vector control programs."

In 2001, Bioko's two subpopulations of A. gambiae mosquitoes, the M and S molecular forms, showed no insecticide resistance.

Results showed that insecticide resistance in the M form occurred within two years, "probably in response to intensive and extensive pyrethroid application through insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying," Reimer said.

What the research means is that "insecticide resistance in a population can occur independently and very quickly in the presence of insecticides," she said. "This case study emphasizes the integral role of population genetics in not only monitoring and predicting, but also in managing the spread of insecticide resistance for more effective mosquito control."

Reimer, who received her bachelor's degree in biology in 2000 from the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wash., with a minor in chemistry, said she knew from childhood that she wanted an entomology career.

"I've always been interested in insects in general, and I'm especially drawn to parasites," said Reimer, who studied social parasites and bumblebees in college.

Although her extended family includes scientists, she is the first entomologist in her family.

Following her college graduation, Reimer joined the Peace Corps and taught science from 2000 to 2002 at an all-girls' school in The Gambia, West Africa. It was a little girl named Halima, about five years old, who fueled her drive to study malaria control.

"I lived in a village where many children suffered from malaria," said Reimer, who developed a close friendship with Halima. "She was very small and undernourished. Every day I would see her pounding millet in the village. Then one day she was not there. She had contracted malaria."

The Peace Corps volunteer stayed at her bedside, soothing her as the aches, chills, rigors and fever wracked her tiny body. "I couldn't leave her," she said. Although malaria kills a child in Africa every 10 to 15 seconds, Halima was one of the lucky ones: she survived.

"In the rainy season, sometimes half of my classroom was empty," Reimer recalled. "They were home sick."

While in The Gambia, Reimer also volunteered in the winter of 2001 as a laboratory and field specialist for the Medical Research Council, Farafenni. She researched "Domestic Flies as a Vector for Trachoma."

Reimer's career has also included:

. January-December 2003: Research assistant in the Princeton University/UC Davis Laboratory of Claire Kremen, Davis, where she studied "Native Pollinators in Natural and Agricultural Systems in California."
. December 2003 to the present: Researcher in the Gregory Lanzaro's lab (she enrolled in the doctoral program in the fall of 2005)
. Summer of 2005: Field biologist for the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito Vector Control District

Winning second place in the William C. Reeves competition was Rajeev Vaidyanathan, a post-doctoral researcher in the UC Davis lab of medical entomologist Thomas Scott, He received $500 for his work on "Mosquito Vector Competence for West Nile Virus." Vaidyanathan obtained his doctorate in parasitology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hadassah Medical School, Israel, and later did research in France on Anopheles.

Honorable mention went to Bonnie Ryan, a vector biologist in the Lake County Vector Control District, who is involved in West Nile virus evaluation in the county. She holds a bachelor's degree in zoology from California State University, Long Beach.