Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( 🔒 ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Need Help

Engineering artificial endosymbiosis in mosquitoes using synthetic biology first principles

Award Number: R21AI193463
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/01/2026
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 04/30/2028

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Engineering artificial endosymbiosis in mosquitoes using synthetic biology first principles - Engineering artificial endosymbiosis in mosquitoes using synthetic biology first principles Symbiosis (the intimate association of dissimilar organisms) is a defining feature of biological life forms. The fact that living organisms do not exist on their own, but rather exist in association with microbes that significantly affect their biology, was recognized for almost 150 years. Endosymbionts (microorganisms that live within the cells of eukaryotic organisms) are ubiquitous in nature. Bacterial endosymbiosis is often obligate, where both the host and the symbiont are reliant upon one another. Obligate endosymbionts often provide resources to their hosts including nutritional supplementation of necessary metabolites (such as vitamins or amino acids) in many species. Some obligate endosymbionts (such as Wolbachia) have been co-opted by humans for applied purposes, where they have been deployed as an agent to control arbovirus transmission in mosquito populations. While understanding the presence, distribution, function, and evolution of symbionts in animals has been revolutionized by advances in parallel sequencing technology, basic, even simple questions such as “what makes a symbiont a symbiont?” are still not well understood. This is coupled with the problem that obligate endosymbionts, by their very nature, are difficult to culture and manipulate. Together, this means that for applied purposes we are reliant on identifying natural endosymbionts that have the characteristics we require for specific translational purposes, leading to suboptimal strains for control. What is desperately needed is a system to study the functional biology of obligate endosymbionts, even those that cannot be cultured or manipulated. This is essentially a catch-22; if a good model or set of techniques was available to address this question, the problem would already be solved. In this project, we propose to use the tenets of modern synthetic biology to engineer E. coli into an obligate, vertically inherited nutritional endosymbiont in mosquitoes from the ground up. These principles can be logically extended to any system, perhaps even systems of clinical importance to humans and animals. Once this platform is established, we can investigate engineering and testing specific applied bacterial phenotypes, such as secreted anti-viral effectors that will limit the replication of arboviruses in mosquitoes or engineering E. coli to express the Wolbachia cif genes that cause CI, as well as basic questions about the evolution, maintenance, and ecology of symbiosis.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $235,950 )
2026	2026	THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY	201 OLD MAIN	UNIVERSITY PARK	PA	16802	CENTRE	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	1	5/1/2026	NEW	$235,950
														Subtotal = $235,950

Grand Total All Awards = $235,950

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Engineering artificial endosymbiosis in mosquitoes using synthetic biology first principles

Award Number: R21AI193463

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/01/2026

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 04/30/2028

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer