How mosquito spit could save lives

The key to stopping the next pandemic may lie in mosquito spit.

In a lab outside of Cambodia's capital, they're running tests by first dissecting mosquitoes to extract their saliva,

Then taking that saliva protein they hope to build a universal vaccine.

Instead of searching for a vaccine for malaria, they're searching for protection against ALL mosquito-bborne pathogens.

Field lab technician Kong Dara, explains how to interpret results:

"We bring the mosquito salivary gland to homogenate, then coat it into a 96-well plate and incubate. . . For the last step, we put substrate into 96-well plate and incubate.. .If we see yellow colour. . it means that patient has developed antibodies against the protein in the mosquito salivary gland. "

This study is led by U.S. infectious diseases researcher Jessica Manning with her team in Cambodia.

Malaria alone kills 400,000 people a year.

But if successful, this vaccine could protect against malaria, dengue, zika, yellow fever and others.

All existing vaccines for humans target a pathogen. Manning's research goes after the vector.

The idea is to train the body's immune system to recognise the saliva proteins and mount a response that would weaken or prevent an infection.

Phase 1 of the trial was conducted on 49 healthy volunteers and showed the immune response to the mosquito spit proteins but did not involve pathogens.

More trials are needed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn sharp attention to how to tackle infectious diseases.

This research is an example of how scientists are broadening their thinking and looking at key areas of concern such as pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes.