Flaminia Catteruccia

Flaminia Catteruccia is an Italian professor of immunology and infectious disease at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, studying the interactions between malaria and the Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit the parasites.

Flaminia Catteruccia
Flaminia Catteruccia
NationalityItalian
Alma materImperial College London
Scientific career
FieldsParasitology, malariology, entomology

Early life and education

Catteruccia initially trained in chemistry for her undergraduate degree, however upon graduating she decided to venture into malaria biology with a research fellowship at the University of Rome La Sapienza.[1][2] She did her PhD at Imperial College London researching genetic manipulation of Anopheles stephensi. She received her PhD in 1999, a year later publishing a demonstration of the integration of a transposon into the genome of the mosquitoes, which was inherited by progeny.[2][3]

Career

Catteruccia was awarded the MRC Career Development Award and Wellcome Trust Value in People Award in 2006.[4] She first set up her own independent research group at Imperial College London in 2007.[5]

Her lab is interested in the reproductive behaviours of mosquitoes, particularly Anopheles gambiae.[1] In 2009 she published research showing that the seminal plug deposited by the male mosquitoes in females after mating is essential for successful reproduction.[6] By knocking down a male enzyme involved in forming the plug (using RNAi), which led to unsuccessful reproductive attempts, her and colleagues demonstrated the necessity of the structure previously thought only to be involved in preventing competition from the sperm of other males.[7] Later her and Andrea Crisanti's teams made a successful gene knockdown in mosquitoes which rendered males completely sterile. Females didn't attempt to mate again after their first copulation with the sterile male, suggesting that the release of sterile males into the wild (as organisations such as Oxitec are currently doing) could have a major effect on mosquito populations.[8][9][10][11] After briefly moving to the University of Perugia, Catteruccia joined the faculty of Harvard as a professor in 2011 upon an invitation by Dyann Wirth.[2][5] Two years later, Catteruccia and colleagues investigated the role of a male hormone in stimulating female production of eggs; an unusual direct link between copulation and ovulation as opposed to the other way round.[12][13] Catteruccia is also involved in the design of gene drives to force malaria-resistance genes to spread through mosquito populations, using CRISPR gene editing.[14][15][16]

In 2016 Catteruccia was awarded a faculty scholarship by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Simons Foundation worth $1.2 million to continue her malaria research.[17]

In 2019 Catteruccia published research in Nature demonstrating that exposure of mosquitoes to antimalarial medication lead to a reduction in their parasite load.[18][19] The study was notable because surprisingly low quantities of the drug atovaquone were needed to induce refractoriness of the mosquitoes towards parasite infection, and the compound could be absorbed through the legs of the insect (as if it was landing briefly on a bed net).[20][21] This could potentially be used to design more effective bed nets, which are currently becoming less effective due to the spread of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes.[20][21][22][23][24][25] Although mosquitoes are unlikely to develop resistance, given that their survival rates appear to be unaffected by the drug in lab conditions, malaria may still develop resistance especially if the drug is implemented on a mass scale.[20][23]

References
  1. Catteruccia, Flaminia (2016-10-01). "Flaminia Catteruccia – Digging into the Sex Life of Mosquitoes". Trends in Parasitology. 32 (10): 751–752. doi:10.1016/j.pt.2016.05.012. ISSN 1471-4922. PMID 27291358.
  2. "Mosquito maven". Harvard News. 2016-09-23. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  3. Crisanti, Andrea; Kafatos, Fotis C.; Savakis, Charalambos; Blass, Claudia; Loukeris, Thanasis G.; Nolan, Tony; Catteruccia, Flaminia (June 2000). "Stable germline transformation of the malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi". Nature. 405 (6789): 959–962. Bibcode:2000Natur.405..959C. doi:10.1038/35016096. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10879538. S2CID 4425584.
  4. "Flaminia Catteruccia". Flaminia Catteruccia. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  5. "Fighting malaria with spermless mosquitoes". Harvard News. 2011-12-08. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  6. Catteruccia, Flaminia; Morris, Howard R.; Dell, Anne; Panico, Maria; Battaglia, Francesca; Baldini, Francesco; Rogers, David W. (2009-12-22). "Transglutaminase-Mediated Semen Coagulation Controls Sperm Storage in the Malaria Mosquito". PLOS Biology. 7 (12): e1000272. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000272. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 2785878. PMID 20027206.
  7. "Meddling in mosquitoes' sex lives could help stop the spread of malaria, says study | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  8. "Spermless mosquitoes could help halt malaria spread". Reuters. 2011-08-08. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  9. Gilbert, Natasha (2011-08-08). "Female mosquitoes tricked by spermless males". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2011.467. ISSN 1476-4687.
  10. Catteruccia, Flaminia; Crisanti, Andrea; Godfray, H. Charles J.; Magnusson, Kalle; Thailayil, Janis (2011-08-16). "Spermless males elicit large-scale female responses to mating in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (33): 13677–13681. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10813677T. doi:10.1073/pnas.1104738108. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3158155. PMID 21825136.
  11. "Spermless mosquitoes hold promise". 2011-08-08. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  12. Adetunji, Jo. "Controlling mosquito sex lives is one way to fight malaria". The Conversation. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  13. Catteruccia, Flaminia; Mancini, Francesca; Valim, Clarissa; South, Adam; Gabrieli, Paolo; Baldini, Francesco (2013-10-29). "The Interaction between a Sexually Transferred Steroid Hormone and a Female Protein Regulates Oogenesis in the Malaria Mosquito Anopheles gambiae". PLOS Biology. 11 (10): e1001695. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001695. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 3812110. PMID 24204210.
  14. "Deploying mosquitoes against Zika". Harvard Gazette. 2016-03-28. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  15. Shaw, Jonathan (2016-04-15). "Editing an End to Malaria?". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  16. Esvelt, Kevin M; Smidler, Andrea L; Catteruccia, Flaminia; Church, George M (2014-07-17). Tautz, Diethard (ed.). "Concerning RNA-guided gene drives for the alteration of wild populations". eLife. 3: e03401. doi:10.7554/eLife.03401. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 4117217. PMID 25035423.
  17. Boston, 677 Huntington Avenue; Ma 02115 +1495‑1000 (2016-09-23). "Flaminia Catteruccia wins prestigious Faculty Scholar award". News. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  18. Catteruccia, Flaminia; Buckee, Caroline O.; Inga E. Holmdahl; Itoe, Maurice A.; Childs, Lauren M.; Paton, Douglas G. (March 2019). "Exposing Anopheles mosquitoes to antimalarials blocks Plasmodium parasite transmission". Nature. 567 (7747): 239–243. Bibcode:2019Natur.567..239P. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-0973-1. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 6438179. PMID 30814727.
  19. "Dundee scientist has major malaria breakthrough that could save thousands of lives". Evening Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  20. "Study finds potential new weapon in fight against malaria". SABC News - Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader. 2019-02-27. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  21. "Medicating mosquitoes to fight malaria: Applying antimalarial drugs to bed nets could lead to drop in malaria transmission". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  22. "Promising New Bed Net Strategy To Zap Malaria Parasite In Mosquitoes". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  23. Ye, Yvaine. "Malaria drugs for mosquitoes could help prevent the disease in humans". New Scientist. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  24. McMillan, Fiona. "Fighting Malaria With Drug-Treated Mosquito Nets". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  25. "Una nuova strategia per combattere la malaria". Le Scienze (in Italian). Retrieved 2019-05-05.
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