Megan Meuti
Contact Information
Associate Professor, Department of Entomology
She/Her
Areas of Expertise
- Molecular and Celular Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
Education
- PhD: The Ohio State University
Our lab studies Northern house and tiger mosquitoes that transmit pathogens to humans, livestock and wildlife. During the spring, summer and early fall, mosquitoes actively bite and reproduce but enter a dormant state during late fall so that they can survive the winter. We are currently studying how mosquitoes convert environmental signals, like daylength and temperature, into hormonal and biochemical pathways that regulate seasonal differences in biting, egg laying, and survival. We have used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to generate mutant mosquitoes that do not express one circadian clock gene, cycle, and are currently using transcriptomics to uncover connections between the circadian clock and seasonal responses in mosquitoes. In the future we plan to determine where clock genes are expressed in mosquito brains so that we can uncover physical connections between clock cells and the neurohemal organs that regulate mosquito development, reproduction and behavior.