Intent on combating malaria, one of the leading causes of death in Africa, three medical entomologists at UC Davis are launching a five-year, federally funded project to train scientists at the University of Bamako, Mali, West Africa.

Medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro, director of the UC Mosquito Research Program and director of the UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases, recently received a five-year, $650,000 training grant from the Fogarty International Center, Bethesda, Md., as part of the National Institutes of Health's Global Infectious Disease Research Training Program.

"Mosquito control is currently the most effective measure to reduce malaria transmission," said Lanzaro, a UC Davis entomology professor who is partnering with Anthony Cornel of the Mosquito Control Research Laboratory at UC's Kearney Agricultural Center, Parlier, and Shirley Luckhart, associate professor of medical microbiology and immunology in the UC Davis School of Medicine.

The training will take place at UC Davis and in Mali. It will cover population genetics, insecticide resistance and interactions between the mosquito and the parasite.

One of the world's oldest and deadliest diseases, malaria annually kills between 1.5 and 2.5 million people, primarily in Africa. It spreads through the bite of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes infected with the Plasmodium parasite.

More than 800,000 reported cases of malaria occur annually in Mali, a nation of 11 million people, according to the World Health Organization. The malaria mortality rate there varies between 16 and 25 percent, with children under age 5 and pregnant women the most vulnerable.

More information on mosquito research is available on the UC Mosquito Research Program Web site at http://www.ucmrp.ucdavis.edu.