The secure insectary was built in 2010 at SMRU to study the interaction between mosquitoes and malaria parasites along the Thailand-Myanmar border. The main research studies focus on:
Infection of mosquitoes with patients’ infected blood to produce Plasmodium vivax sporozoites to support liver stages research in order to screen drugs capable of eradicating the relapsing stages of P. vivax malaria.
Anopheles infections to test the susceptibility of mosquitoes to Plasmodia.
Infection of mosquitoes with in vitro cultured gametocytes for the “Tracking Resistance to Artemisinin Collaboration” (TRAC 2 study) in order to investigate the susceptibility of resistant strains to Asian and African mosquitos’ species.
Detection of Plasmodia gametocytes in patients’ blood using a qRT-PCR assay.
Studying the dynamics of malaria transmission in mosquitoes on the Thailand-Myanmar border following targeted malaria elimination through mosquitos’ collection in the field and malaria detection.
Repellent studies.
SMRU, Mae Sot, Thailand is a field station of the faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, and is part of the Mahidol-Oxford Research Unit. It is both a health care and research facility, focused on maternal-child health and infectious diseases. The Mae Sot, Thailand, field office of Global Fund partner Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU). The central laboratory facilities include microbiology, malaria microscopy, malaria in-vitro, hematology, and entomology. Its records include decades of information about malaria epidemiology in the area.