Alex Richter-Boix is a Postdoc and scientist communication technician at the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF, Barcelona) participating in the Human-Mosquito Interaction Project (H-MIP) funded by the European Research Council. The group is investigating host-vector networks, and the socio-ecological context of mosquito borne disease, with an interdisciplinary approach combining new genetic techniques with citizen science, sociology and modelling. His main contribution is in the citizen science approach, helping in the design of the new version of the Mosquito Alert app and the digital platform of the project that allows everyone to report where they find mosquitoes and where they get bitten. He is also responsible for the communication strategy to promote the use of the app by citizens.
He is a biologist, specialist in evolutionary ecology and science communication. His doctoral thesis at the University of Barcelona (UB) focused on the phenotypic plasticity and ecology of amphibian larvae phase, while during his first postdoc position at the Uppsala University (UU, Sweden) focused in understand the mechanisms of ecological adaptation of animal populations, analyzing the link between spatial variation in ecological conditions and differentiation, including anthropogenic alterations like Global Warming, landscape alteration and invasive species. He has developed his scientific activity at the UB and UPF (Barcelona, Spain), at EBD-CSIC (Seville, Spain), and at EBC-UU (Uppsala, Sweden), doing fieldwork in Spain, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Iceland and Argentina. Lastly he studied a master’s degree on science communication at the UPF Barcelona School of Management.
El sábado 12 de junio, el equipo de Mosquito Alert llevó a cabo una actividad en el idílico Jardín Botánico Marimurtra de Blanes. A lo largo de todo el día se desarrolló una prueba piloto en el marco del proyecto Human-Mosquito Interaction otorgado por el European Research Council (ERC), que tiene como objetivo estudiar la red de interacciones que hay entre el mosquito tigre y las personas.
Pese a los grandes avances científicos y clínicos de las últimas décadas, las enfermedades transmitidas por vectores como los mosquitos siguen siendo una de las principales amenazas para la salud pública mundial. Enfermedades como el dengue son un riesgo para cientos de millones de personas cada año, mientras que la malaria aún causa más de 400.000 muertes al año. A estas enfermedades en los últimos años se han sumado brotes de Zika, chikungunya y fiebre del Nilo Occidental. A las infecciones transmitidas por los mosquitos hay que sumar las de otros artrópodos, como moscas negras, flebótomos, chiches, garrapatas o moscas tse-tse, que en conjunto causan más de 26 millones de casos anuales.