Fabio Mendonça Gomes

Biology, Life Sciences

Biologist Fabio Mendonça Gomes spent five years abroad chasing mosquitoes. His research, conducted partly at the National Institute of Health in Washington and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, seeks to understand why some mosquitoes become infected with parasites when they feed on blood, while others do not.

The Carioca earned his master’s and doctorate in biophysics at the Carlos Chagas Filho Biophysics Institute at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he also completed his undergraduate studies. His post-doctoral research included a period at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. He has returned to Brazil after five years to indulge his longing to see Flamengo take to the field. Outside the lab, he is on the look-out for new restaurants, history and science fiction books, and soccer matches.

LattesORCID

Open Calls

Science Call 3
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            [post_content] => Our diet affects our health and can influence whether we get sick during an infection. Similarly, dietary health is also an important factor in the immune competence of other animals, including female mosquitoes. Female mosquitoes feed on blood to obtain the nutritional reserves used to make eggs. However, it is unclear how the quality of the blood ingested by mosquitoes affects their health and ability to transmit diseases.

As a pandemic of malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes spreads, we ask whether variations in blood composition caused by dietary imbalance can affect the health of the mosquitoes that ingest this blood. We also want to know if these changes in blood composition affect mosquitoes' ability to transmit a huge range of diseases to humans.
            [post_title] => Effect of Malnutrition in Vertebrates on the Vectorial Competence of Aedes aegypti
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Projects

Effect of Malnutrition in Vertebrates on the Vectorial Competence of Aedes aegypti
Science / Life Sciences

Our diet affects our health and can influence whether we get sick during an infection. Similarly, dietary health is also an important factor in the immune competence of other animals, including female mosquitoes. Female mosquitoes feed on blood to obtain the nutritional reserves used to make eggs. However, it is unclear how the quality of the blood ingested by mosquitoes affects their health and ability to transmit diseases.

As a pandemic of malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes spreads, we ask whether variations in blood composition caused by dietary imbalance can affect the health of the mosquitoes that ingest this blood. We also want to know if these changes in blood composition affect mosquitoes’ ability to transmit a huge range of diseases to humans.