New jobs for York as the fight to control mosquito-borne diseases steps up

The university has taken 2,750 sq ft of space for the research project, which includes two controlled-environment rooms and ancillary space.

Vector-borne disease – diseases that are transmitted by insects such as mosquitos and ticks – represent 17 per cent of all infectious diseases worldwide, and very few have effective vaccines.

To provide new methods for controlling mosquito-borne diseases, University of York will be conducting research into reducing the size of the mosquito population that transmits them, and also ways to make mosquitoes less able to transmit disease.

The campus worked closely with University of York to modify the laboratories to the requirements necessary for the studies to take place.

Professor of genetics Luke Alphey will be leading the project. There will be between 15 – 20 people working on the project, based either at York Biotech Campus or the University.

There are plans to recruit a further 12 people over the next six months, with roles available from new graduates to senior postdocs with a focus on insects, molecular biology and cell culture.

Prof Alphey said: "The university has limited space for our type of research, so to complete the work we needed to look beyond it, and York Biotech Campus was able to provide us with the specialist facilities we required.

“We’re also going to be based very closely to other leading organisations in our field, such as Fera Science, who are also heavily involved in insect work.”