A University of Idaho researcher may have found the answer to an age-old summertime scourge with a breakthrough appetite suppressant for mosquitoes.
Marc Klowden said Tuesday that the next step is trying to get the compound out of the laboratory and into the female mosquitoes. That could take years."It's a challenge," said the entomologist. "Right now you'd have to inject each mosquito with a little syringe."
Klowden has spent the past 13 years studying mosquitoes, and one of the things he's found is that female mosquitoes stop feeding once they have a bellyful of blood.
One reason is a hormone produced during the egg-creating process. Klowden has found that injecting the hormone into female mosquitoes tricks them into thinking they're full.
Research now is shifting into the realm of biotechnology.