Infravec

About

Insect vectors represent a major global cause of human suffering due to the diseases they transmit. These include parasitic diseases such as malaria and leishmaniasis, and viral infections such as chikungunya, dengue, Zika, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever. Vector-borne diseases, which have historically been a problem of tropical countries, now represent a threat for temperate regions of the world including much of Europe. A contributing factor has been the spread of Aedes species, particularly the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus, to southern Europe.

The increased risk of vector-borne diseases for the European population is a trend that will continue as a consequence of the global movement and expansion of the range of mosquito vectors, the global movement of infected people, large-scale migration due to political instability and war, and the adaptation of known and new pathogens to European environments. In addition, important vector-borne veterinary diseases, such as bluetongue and Schmallenberg viruses, are responsible for large economic losses in Europe and elsewhere. Bloodfeeding insects can act as bridge vectors of newly emerging, unknown animal pathogens to humans, and most of the future threats of vector-borne disease will likely be of novel zoonotic origin emerging from forest contact zones.

The goal of the Infravec2 project is to build a durable European infrastructure to control insect vector-borne disease. A robust infrastructure will have the capacity to respond to current vector-borne disease epidemics, and importantly, will also have the power to predict and prevent the inevitable next one.

Infravec2 is an Advanced Community after a four-year Starting Community lifecycle (Infravec1). The overall objective of the project is to integrate key specialized research facilities necessary for European excellence in insect vector biology, open them for European access, and develop new vector control measures targeting the greatest threats to human health and animal industries.

Moreover, Infravec2 will implement comparable standards across the secure insectary facilities as a world first. The lack of standards and inter-laboratory reproducibility undermines the value of results and constitutes a significant current weakness, which impedes the full exploitation of European vector infrastructures for research and public health. Transposed to vector biology, the lack of unified experimental standards leads to errors in understanding the degree of risk posed by vector-pathogen combinations, and consequent inadequate preventative response. The resources will be opened and publicized to European researchers, with the realistic expectation to consolidate European global leadership in insect vector biology.

Infravec2’s partner institutions include: Institut Pasteur and IRD, France, Imperial College and Pirbright Institute, UK, IRTA, Spain, FORTH, Greece, Radboud University and Wageningen University, Netherlands, Max Planck Institute, Germany, and the European Bioinformatics Institute-EMBL, Polo d’Innovazione di Genomica Genetica e Biologia, Italy.