South Bend Researcher Secures Grants Totaling $1.9M

(Image courtesy of Indiana University)

An Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend researcher has been awarded nearly $1.9 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Defense. The funds will support Molly Duman Scheel’s work focusing on safeguarding field troops from mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika and dengue fever.

The largest of the two grants, a three-year, $1.1 million award from the DOD’s Investigator Initiated Research program, focuses on larvicides as part of a collaboration with University of Notre Dame Department of Biological Sciences research associate professor Nicole Achee. The second grant, worth $750,000, is courtesy of the Deployed War Fighter Protection Program and targets abatement of male mosquitoes in association with researchers from Notre Dame, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland and the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medicine Sciences in Thailand.

Scheel says "the interest the Department of Defense has in this project acknowledges the large number of military personnel, military support personnel and military family members who are deployed to areas where mosquito-borne illnesses are prevalent. Their exposure to Zika and dengue fever is ongoing. In the case of Zika, a troop’s potential to infect a spouse or partner is another level of concern."

You can connect to more about the grants by clicking here.