Grant: Engage Grants Program

Greenlid Envirosciences and Brock University's Centre for Vector-Borne Diseases have teamed up to develop the best Biotrap possible. Greenlid's Biotrap is the world's first fully biodegradable, just-add-water mosquito trap. The Biotrap is designed to mimic the breeding grounds of female container-breeding mosquitoes and then kill them and their offspring. Reducing mosquito populations is one component of vector control, but the true measure of success would be if the Biotraps can trap and kill mosquitoes infected with mosquito-borne disease (e.g. Zika, West Nile virus) as well as uninfected mosquitoes. We simply do not know whether infected mosquitoes display the same egg laying behaviours as do uninfected mosquitoes. This research partnership aims to test whether arbovirus-infected mosquitoes are attracted to the Biotraps to the same extent that uninfected mosquitoes are. Through a series of experiments in Brock's Containment Level 3 facility - where we are able to work with live, infected mosquitoes - we will optimize both the colour and odour of the Biotraps so that Greenlid can assure potential customers that their Biotraps have been scientifically proven to be effective against infected mosquitoes as well as uninfected mosquitoes!