Craig Stephen Wilding

BSc in Marine Biology from The University College of North Wales (Bangor) (1992) and doctorate in Marine Biology from The University of Wales (Bangor) (1996).

My current research uses molecular and evolutionary genetic techniques and principles to address problems in tropical medicine, principally the molecular genetics of insect disease vectors primarily in Anopheles mosquitoes but more recently on the Culex vectors of lymphatic filariasis.The main focus of my research is the genetic basis of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. Resistance to the insecticides used in vector control represents a possible impediment to effective control strategies and an understanding of the genetic basis of this resistance would aid not only in the development of improved insecticide formulations, and hence more effective control measures, but also allow the development of genetic tests to rapidly measure the extent and spread of resistance. My work has used a variety of approaches including whole genome Agilent gene expression microarrays, qPCR, association mapping using the Illumina GoldenGate assay, targeted re-sequencing, and in vitro expression of identified candidates in bacterial and insect cell lines. I am particularly interested in methods to identify the regulatory variants underpinning the gene expression changes seen in insecticide resistant mosquitoes and to this end use reporter assays to study the activity of promoter sequences of candidate detoxification genes, and am involved in a project to characterise the microRNA repertoire (key post transcriptional regulators of genes) in An. gambiae (with Rodolphe Poupardin and Hilary Ranson, LSTM).Recent work on insecticide resistance in An. gambiae and An. arabiensis has been conducted as part of the East African ICEMR (International Centre of Excellence for Malaria Research), based in Uganda and studying three key collection sites Tororo, Jinja and Kanungu. I continue to have links with this programme.Additionally, I am involved, through the Donnelly group at LSTM, in a collaboration with the Kwiatkowski group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute the Anopheles 1000 genome initiative undertaking whole genome sequencing of field-collected samples and lab colonies of Anopheles gambiae to study diversity and population structure of malaria vectors across a range of spatial scales in sub Saharan Africa. Through the Donnelly group I am also working on the annotation and analysis of insecticide resistance-associated gene families across a number of recently sequenced Anopheles mosquito species as part of the Anopheles genome cluster