Lisa Reimer, a University of California, Davis doctoral student who is researching insecticide resistance of the malaria mosquito, has received a $2000 grant from the African American and Africa Studies Program at UC Davis to fund her research this summer in the West African nation of Mali.

Reimer, who began her research in Mali last summer, will return to Mali in August and September.

She and Fogarty International scholar Brehima Diallo, a Mali scientist who studied in the UC Davis Vector Genetics Lab for the past six months, are collaborating on an insecticide resistance project.

The World Health Organization cites resistance to insecticides as one of the primary factors impeding malaria control efforts.

Malaria kills more than a million people a year, and 90 percent of the global incidence of malaria occurs in Africa.

"Resistance to pyrethroids, the insecticides used to control the major sub-Saharan malaria vector Anopheles gambiae is rapidly spreading," Reimer said. "This is of concern because current malaria control programs rely heavily on indoor residual spraying with insecticides, and insecticide-treated bed nets."

The bed nets, she said, offer individual and community protection against malaria, "often reducing morbidity by as much as 50 percent."

"Pyrethroid insecticides are the preferred choice for both control programs because of their high efficacy, persistence, rapid rate of knockdown and low mammalian toxicity," Reimer said. "Improved methods of resistance detection must be developed so that effective resistance management strategies can be employed."

Her major professor, UC Davis medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro described her as "an outstanding graduate student and I have no doubt that she will go on to make significant contributions in the field of global health in the area of research on the biology of vectorborne diseases."

"Lisa is forming an excellent network of collaborators in Africa that will continue after she is awarded her doctorate," said Lanzaro, who directs the UC Mosquito Research Program, UC Malaria Research and Control Group and the Center for Vectorborne Diseases.

"She quickly learned all the necessary techniques, including DNA isolation from mosquito tissue, diagnostic PCR, microsatellite DNA analysis and DNA sequencing," he said.

Reimer's interest in malaria, particularly mosquito vector population biology and insecticide resistance, sprang from her work as a science teacher with the Peace Corps in The Gambia, West Africa from 2000-2002.

"Medina, a rural village of thatch and mud buildings, is a case study in man's struggle with insect-borne diseases," she said. For two years, she witnessed the seasonal devastation malaria brought to Medina, sharing the villagers' cycle of grief, labor, and hope.

"I returned from The Gambia with many unanswered questions and the knowledge that my contribution to disease prevention must extend beyond community education."

She enrolled in the entomology doctoral program at UC Davis in 2005.

Reimer won the statewide William C. Reeves New Investigator Award in 2005, based on her scientific paper published in Insect Molecular Biology on the distribution of insecticide resistance genes in Anopheles gambiae. She and a team of 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.

Last August Reimer attended the prestigious Biology of Disease Vectors course held at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene before heading to Mali for field and laboratory work. She established collaborative relationships at the Malaria Research and Training Center, University of Bamako.

Reimer, a 1996 graduate of Lake Washington High School, Kirkland, Wash., received her bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wash., in 2000. She served as a research assistant at Princeton University and UC Davis before enrolling in the UC Davis doctoral program.