The gnatwork: building capacity for research on neglected tropical vectors

The vector-borne disease challenge this network addresses is to develop multidisciplinary techniques that can be used in research across three neglected vector groups: biting midges, sandflies and blackflies. These groups are responsible for the transmission of internationally important pathogens worldwide and disproportionately impact upon countries receiving official development assistance from the UK. At present, communication between communities studying midges, sandflies and blackflies is almost non-existent for a wide variety of reasons, mostly associated with differences in the type of pathogens each group transmits and the host in which they cause disease. The single most important bottleneck shared in research of all these haematophagous insects, however, is their small body size. This imposes constraints on a vast range of research areas from behavioural ecology to genomics and often precludes recruitment of new workers due to their perceived difficulty as subjects. When combined with fluctuations in funding that are an intrinsic factor in pathogen research this creates a significant challenge in retaining a critical mass of researchers, particularly in countries where medical and veterinary priorities change rapidly. By bringing together workers in two countries where research is relevant to development, we can make significant progress in translating techniques across all three vector groups and build a more resilient research base for these groups.

The network management board contains acknowledged and established experts on biting midges, sandflies and blackflies and early career researchers with an equal gender balance. We will initially base the project in Bangladesh and Brazil where there are existing communities of workers on all three groups that remain entirely disconnected. We have therefore recruited management leads for both Brazil and Bangladesh who will work with the Director and co-Director to bring together workers through project meetings. At these meetings, we will use workshops to train students and early career researchers with a pragmatic approach in establishing a sufficient baseline of expertise to improve working practices. Areas that we feel can be significantly improved are in experimental design, taxonomy of insect fauna and practical fieldwork projects. We have also focussed on epidemiological techniques that share similarities between the groups including the analysis of surveillance data on spatial and temporal levels.

As part of the network, we will also fund six catalyst projects of up to £100k across two calls. The aim of these projects will be to provide validated approaches for techniques that can be used across the three vector groups and potentially extended to others. There will be a clear emphasis during these projects in providing data quickly to as broad a proportion of the community as possible as the aim is to underpin larger collaborative applications. There will be a requirement for at least a proportion of each study to be conducted in either Brazil, or Bangladesh, or both countries. The development of south-south relationships will be a feature of the project as communities studying these vector communities in the two countries have few current lines of collaboration and face similar logistical issues in implementing research in the field. The use of students and early career researchers in these research projects will be encouraged and each will have a high profile on the network website to enhance career prospects.

The aim of this network is to bring together workers on neglected Dipteran vectors of pathogens with a focus on biting midges (Family Ceratopogonidae); sandflies (Family: Psychodidae) and blackflies (Simulidae). The aim is to create a cadre of workers who can carry out coherent studies of all three groups while providing catalyst grants that are transformative in underpinning future collaborative applications. Funding for studies of these groups tends to be intermittent and linked directly to disease impact within countries, hence by developing critical mass in research across the groups we will build sustainability across the communities. We will use both annual meetings and a dedicated and useful website to drive this process, making use of a management board that is primarily based around workers in field-based epidemiology. A major unifying factor in this is the fact that these groups have the smallest body size of vector species which imposes severe constraints on research ranging from the ability to extract high quality DNA/RNA from individual insects to fundamental behavioural studies in the field and laboratory. We will therefore fund up to 6 projects of £100 000 maximum value to produce cross-vector studies that will address some of these bottlenecks to progress. It is expected that these will be placed into the public domain in the lifetime of the project enabling them to be used by members of the community to underpin larger collaborative applications.

The impacts of the project can be divided into those associated with the network (including annual meetings and the website facility) and those arising from the catalyst grant funding (£600 000 over three years).

Impact of the Network: The network will support three meetings based in the UK, Bangladesh and Brazil. The UK meeting will focus initially upon ensuring that the resources produced during the project are relevant, focussed and will have a specific and measurable impact within the lifetime of the grant. We expect this to influence both the website design, which will be presented in a preliminary form at the meeting, our strategy regarding early careers development and the development of transferable skills in study of the three neglected vector groups in Bangladesh and Brazil. Later meetings in Bangladesh and Brazil will develop specific skills based around experimental design, taxonomy and epidemiology in a cohort of 20-30 early career scientists in these countries. We will specifically follow the careers of these scientists, both within and beyond the lifespan of the project to understand what challenges are present in establishing a scientific career in these fields and how to effectively promote this career choice. The aim will be to provide a balanced assessment of the utility of short term training provided within the project and the broader impact of the network in both bringing people into contact with other employers and in creating lasting links between researchers.
The website facility will enable long-term contact within the community and also act as a focus for building relationships with policy makers and the general public. By releasing data and validated methodologies through the website we will encourage increased traffic and additionally gain direct feedback on uptake from those within the VBD field. In addition, we will prepare specific briefing documents for policy makers, initially tailored to the countries concerned, but expanded to include global oversight. These will be discussed with the external panel member who will be drawn from an OIE/WHO background. We expect this overview to inform disease control In Bangladesh and Brazil by providing points of contact for specific areas of research. The general public will benefit from lay overviews of research and video interviews of researchers involved in the project explaining both their research and its impact.

Impact of Catalyst Funding: The aim of the catalyst funds is to provide validated, transformative studies that underpin future grant applications relevant to a wide range of users. In addition, these short-term projects will provide a boost to early career researchers, enabling them to obtain a significant profile in the field. A key factor in the success of this process will be making results of studies available within a very short period following study completion. Hence we will require projects funded to release data to repositories immediately following study completion. Simultaneously we will advertise the work of researchers on our website, raising their profile in the community and increasing their probability of future employment. We believe that this is preferable to the common situation where early career researchers employed on short term contracts do not receive full value for their studies and tend to lose contact with projects following their completion. We feel that this will lead to a greater than average employment for those participating on projects and we will compare this cohort of researchers with those not selected for funding at the end of the project to assess impact.

The broader aim of the catalyst funding will be to enable projects based on neglected vectors that currently suffer from technical bottlenecks to research. The pathogen transmission aspect of research is reviewed in the ODA impact document and is considerable, impacting on a range of resource poor populations and in animal welfare and prod