Courtney Murdock, an assistant professor in the Odum School of Ecology, received $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to study the environmental drivers of Zika virus transmission and control.
Her project will address gaps in knowledge about the time it takes for the Zika virus to become infectious in a mosquito; the proportion of a mosquito population that becomes infectious; and mosquito survival in the two species shown to transmit the Zika virus. To predict the seasonal and geographic distribution of potential outbreaks, Murdock’s laboratory will examine temperature and transmission relationships that can alter viral dynamics in the mosquito.
