Preparing Mosquitoes for Dissection

Preparing Mosquitoes for Dissection

Nil Gural

Koch Institute at MIT, Institute of Medical Engineering and Science

Malaria is generally known as a blood disease, however upon bite of an infected mosquito, the parasite first travels to the human liver where it incubates and grows for 10-14 days. In order to study the liver stage of the disease, one needs the parasite in the form right after it finishes developing in the mosquito. The image you see here is 4 malaria infected mosquitos that have been prepared for dissection.

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