Amrein Lab

Research focus

NIH R01 · 2024

The taste of ribonucleosides: The molecular and cellular basis underlying chemosensory detection of previously unknown macronutrients

Insects are the most abundant class of animals, next to vertebrates. For example, the biomass of termites alone equals that of humans, the most abundant mammal. There are about 1 million named insect species and approximately another 5 million yet to be classified, compared to about 66,000 species of vertebrates. While overall beneficial to our ecosystem, some insects have considerable negative impact on human health. Disease vectors, mostly flies and mosquitoes, are major transmitter of microbes that cause devasting human diseases, including yellow fever, dengue, malaria and zika. These insect vectors kill close to a million people each year, sicken hundreds of millions more and incur…

From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.