Moskito - Context
iGEM Pasteur Team 2016
Best diagnostics / Best applied design project / Best entrepreneurship awrads at Boston, iGEM 2016.
Laureate of the Grand Challenges Africa 2017.
Special mention, Braun prize 2018
For this project we worked as a multidisciplinary team of students, in which designers work along with biologists and physicists. This approach allows us to bring together different yet complementary skills, in order to challenge a serious issue in an innovative way: the fight against viruses spread by mosquitoes.
These viruses, such as Zika, Chinkungnya, Dengue, are spreading at an alarming rate on a global scale. They mostly strike in Southern Hemisphere countries, and as global warming progresses, they will likely reach more and more areas. As vaccines are yet to be discovered and mosquitoes do not recognize borders, this is an international issue that designers and biologists, together with local authorities, can attempt to tackle.
Today the main way to fight mosquito-borne diseases is to spray insecticides, to kill mosquitoes in the areas that are at risk. Although this method is effective for killing the vector, it introduces other concerns. The ecosystem is impacted and mosquitoes can develop a resistance to the insecticide, which results in more spraying.
These viruses, such as Zika, Chinkungnya, Dengue, are spreading at an alarming rate on a global scale. They mostly strike in Southern Hemisphere countries, and as global warming progresses, they will likely reach more and more areas. As vaccines are yet to be discovered and mosquitoes do not recognize borders, this is an international issue that designers and biologists, together with local authorities, can attempt to tackle.
Today the main way to fight mosquito-borne diseases is to spray insecticides, to kill mosquitoes in the areas that are at risk. Although this method is effective for killing the vector, it introduces other concerns. The ecosystem is impacted and mosquitoes can develop a resistance to the insecticide, which results in more spraying.
Moskito - Project
Together we designed an environmental surveillance system that enables the quick location of infected mosquitoes. This way the infected areas would be targeted more precisely, avoiding insecticide over-spraying.
By transposing the diagnosis from already sick people to the mosquitoes, the project also helps to prevent epidemics. Our project, Mos(kit)o, is a kit containing three tools: a mosquito trap, an analysis station with a bio-produced patch, and a mapping software that generates a mapping of the results.
These tools are intended for non-scientists, who can securely and rapidly run an analysis without a lab or electricity. The innovation consists of both the complementarity and accessibility of the three tools and of the invention of a bio-produced patch that avoids the need for costly equipment.
By transposing the diagnosis from already sick people to the mosquitoes, the project also helps to prevent epidemics. Our project, Mos(kit)o, is a kit containing three tools: a mosquito trap, an analysis station with a bio-produced patch, and a mapping software that generates a mapping of the results.
These tools are intended for non-scientists, who can securely and rapidly run an analysis without a lab or electricity. The innovation consists of both the complementarity and accessibility of the three tools and of the invention of a bio-produced patch that avoids the need for costly equipment.