Sungshil Kim

Our next Baylor University WISE Graduate Student Seminar Speaker is Sungshil Kim. Sungshil Kim is working on her PhD with Dr. Cheolho Sim in the Biology Department here at Baylor University. Her talk is entitled “Mating behavior to make sterile males for population control in Culex pipiens complex mosquitos.”

Summary: This research is a part of controlling/containing the Culex pipiens mosquito population to decrease diseases transmission such as the West Nile Virus to humans. To contribute to this goal, this study focuses on analyzing mosquito mating behavior to make it so genetically modified sterile males will mate with wild females to stop egg production. This is broadly called the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). In order to create healthy sterile males, researchers must look at mosquito mating behavior to pinpoint genes that will be used later on for the SIT program.