In the today’s world where we are still having trouble foreseeing events such as earthquakes and disease outbreaks, our team decided to focus on finding a way to predict one of these problems and, therefore, prevent it from happening. As the centre of our study, we chose arboviruses, mosquito-borne viruses which often cause severe diseases in humans. These viruses are spreading at an alarming rate on a global scale thanks to mosquitoes, their vectors. Currently, the most common method of fighting against the dissemination of the vectors and the viruses are insecticides, which proved to be extremely damaging to the environment. In addition to that, mosquitoes tend to develop resistance against these insecticides, which diminishes their efficiency even more.
Our project consists out of a kit named MOS(KIT)O, containing:
• It fits on a cellulose matrix which is inert to side reactions in immunodection.
• It contains a region capable of catalyzing bio silification, a reaction inspired by the organic production of silica by diatoms to increase rigidity.
• An immunological portion for attaching specific antibodies to our arboviruses on the fusion protein.
As a result of these three functions, the protein is able to specifically catch viral proteins. And with a simple marking solution, it reveals the presence of the virus. Our novel protein is integrated into a cellulose patch giving a user friendly detection device. It is rigid, easy to be manipulated, and made from a new composite biomaterial. In addition, by choosing the antibody that we fix on the protein BpA, we choose the virus that we want to detect (Zika, Chikunguya, Dengue, Yellow Fever…).
The patch is at the very heart of the kit we want to provide. The kit is made of three parts:
• A trapping system (blablabla)
• A detection system (the patch)
• A mapping system (blabla)
The trapping system is designed to catch mosquitoes in the most effective way. It works by mimicking the signals that attract mosquito toward humans and animals. It works on three scales:
• the mosquito is attracted by the plume of CO2 emitted in a 10 to 50-meter radius
• the color contrast, that depends on the species of mosquito we target
• the moisture in the trap
When we decide to introduce a detection system against arboviruses in the environment, it is essential to take into account the safety of local people and surrounding ecosystems. That's why our new fusion protein and its cellulose support are fully biodegradable. In addition, we have thought about combining our patch with our trap in a completely sealed container that can be opened only with a key, for example. It will be necessary to train people to read the results of this test and open this container.
We imagined 2 kinds of traps. On the one hand, a stationary trap for fixed positions in urban or suburban areas, on the other, a drone based trap to span areas that are difficult to access like tropical forests. In the latter case, the drone will be programmed to come back to its base with the trap full of mosquitoes. The CO2 plume is produced by pouring vinegar on a solution of NaHCO3. We use this way to product CO2 because it is very simple and economically suitable for poor countries. Mosquitoes are attracted and trapped in a chamber.
Once the diagnosis has been performed, a trained person will come to read the results of the test kit and replace refill the system.
