Clément Vinauger

Program Focus

Disease vector insects, and among them mosquitoes, are impacting millions of people every year. The global strategy for management of vector-borne diseases involves controlling vector populations, to a large extent through insecticide application. However, vector-borne diseases are now resurgent, largely because of rising insecticide resistance in vector populations and the drug resistance of pathogens. In this context, my research aims at closing the key knowledge gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms that allow blood-feeding insects to be such efficient disease vectors and, more specifically, to identify and characterize factors that modulate their host-seeking behavior.

A remarkable feature of blood-feeding insects is their rhythmic activity and biting patterns.  In a large number of disease vector species, different activities are modulated throughout the day and diverse vector-host interaction patterns have been described. Previous work has shown that biological clocks mediate host-vector interactions through diverse processes, such as regulating the sensitivity to host odors or modulating the ability to learn and memorize host-related information. In particular, we have shown that triatomine bugs only learn at times when it  is biologically relevant. However, despite clear epidemiological relevance, we know very little about the underlying mechanisms modulating vector-host interactions throughout the day. In addition, there are many examples in the literature of pathogen infection affecting the behavior of insect vectors. But again, despite obvious epidemiological consequences the mechanisms underlying the modulation of vectors’ behavior and activity rhythms by parasites remain to be unraveled. 

In this context, the focus of my laboratory is to investigate circadian and pathogen induced modulations of vector-host interactions, while leveraging interdisciplinary tools to go from the gene, to the neuron, to the insect behavior, and combining methods from Biochemistry, Neuroscience, Engineering and Chemical Ecology.

Compton, A., Sharma, A., Hempel, M., Aryan, A., Biedler, J.K., Potters, M.B., Chandrasegaran, K., Vinauger, C., & Tu, Z. (2025). Differential elimination of marked sex chromosomes enables production of nontransgenic male mosquitoes in a single strain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 122, e2412149122.

Wynne, N.E., Applebach, E., Chandrasegaran, K., Ajayi, O.M., Chakraborty, S., Bonizzoni, M., Lahondère, C., Benoit, J.B., & Vinauger, C. (2024). Aedes albopictus colonies from different geographic origins differ in their sleep and activity levels but not in the time of peak activity. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 38, 495–507.

Ajayi, O.M., Susanto, E.E., Wang, L., Kennedy, J., Ledezma, A., Harris, A., Smith, E.S., Chakraborty, S., Wynne, N.E., Sylla, M., et al. (2024). Intra-species quantification reveals differences in activity and sleep levels in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 38, 482–494.

Vinauger, C., & Chandrasegaran, K. (2024). Context-specific variation in life history traits and behavior of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Frontiers in Insect Science 4, 1426715.

Wangrawa, D.W., Chandrasegaran, K., Upshur, F., Borovsky, D., Sharakhov, I.V., Vinauger, C., Badolo, A., Sanon, A., & Lahondère, C. (2024). Behavioral response of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) to essential oils of Cymbopogon nardus (L.) Eucalyptus camaldulensis (Dehnh) and their blend in Y-maze olfactometer. Frontiers in Tropical Diseases 5, 1443952.

Lou, L., Tu, Z.J., Lahondère, C., & Vinauger, C. (2024). Rhythms in insect olfactory systems: underlying mechanisms and outstanding questions. Journal of Experimental Biology 227, jeb244182.

Wolff, G.H., Lahondère, C., Vinauger, C., Rylance, E., & Riffell, J.A. (2023). Neuromodulation and differential learning across mosquito species. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 290, 20222118.

Vinauger, C., & Riffell, J.A. (2023). Retrospective review of and introduction to the analysis of mosquito optomotor responses. Cold Spring Harbor Protocols 2023, pdb.top107672.

Vinauger, C., & Riffell, J.A. (2023). Tethered preparation for the analysis of mosquito visual-motor responses using modular visual displays. Cold Spring Harbor Protocols 2023, pdb.prot108179.

Lahondère, C., Vinauger, C., Liaw, J.E., Tobin, K.K.S., Joiner, J.M., & Riffell, J.A. (2023). Effect of temperature on mosquito olfaction. Integrative and Comparative Biology 63, 356–367.

VanderGiessen, M., Tallon, A.K., Damico, B., Lahondère, C., & Vinauger, C. (2023). Soap application alters mosquito-host interactions. iScience 26.

Ajayi, O.M., Wynne, N.E., Chen, S.-C., Vinauger, C., & Benoit, J.B. (2023). Sleep: An essential and understudied process in the biology of blood-feeding arthropods. Integrative and Comparative Biology 63, 530–547.

Njike, D., Stremler, M., Vinauger, C., Wilmsen, S., & Socha, J., & Lahondère, C. (2023). Fluid mechanics models of a drinking mosquito. Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Upshur, I.F., Fehlman, M., Parikh, V., Vinauger, C., & Lahondère, C. (2023). Sugar feeding by invasive mosquito species on ornamental and wild plants. Scientific Reports 13, 22121.

Ajayi, O.M., Marlman, J.M., Gleitz, L.A., Smith, E.S., Piller, B.D., Krupa, J.A., Vinauger, C., & Benoit, J.B. (2022). Behavioral and postural analyses establish sleep-like states for mosquitoes that can impact host landing and blood feeding. Journal of Experimental Biology 225, jeb244032.

Wynne, N.E., Chandrasegaran, K., Fryzlewicz, L., & Vinauger, C. (2022). Visual threats reduce blood-feeding and trigger escape responses in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Scientific Reports 12, 21354.

Reinhold, J.M., Chandrasegaran, K., Oker, H., Crespo, J.E., Vinauger, C., & Lahondère, C. (2022). Species-specificity in thermopreference and CO₂-gated heat-seeking in Culex mosquitoes. Insects 13, 92.

Wangrawa, D.W., Ochomo, E., Upshur, F., Zanré, N., Borovsky, D., Lahondère, C., Vinauger, C., Badolo, A., & Sanon, A. (2022). Essential oils and their binary combinations have synergistic and antagonistic insecticidal properties against Anopheles gambiae s.l. (Diptera: Culicidae). Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology 42, 102347.

Lazzari, C.R., & Vinauger, C. (2022). Modulation of host-seeking behaviour in kissing bugs. In Sensory Ecology of Disease Vectors (Wageningen Academic Publishers), pp. 801–813.

Benoit, J.B., & Vinauger, C. (2022). Chronobiology of blood-feeding arthropods: influences on their role as disease vectors. In Sensory Ecology of Disease Vectors (Wageningen Academic Publishers), pp. 815–849.

Walker, M., Chandrasegaran, K., Vinauger, C., Robert, M.A., & Childs, L.M. (2021). Modeling the effects of Aedes aegypti’s larval environment on adult body mass at emergence. PLoS Computational Biology 17, e1009102.

Lahondère, C., Vinauger, C., Okubo, R.P., Wolff, G.H., Chan, J.K., Akbari, O.S., & Riffell, J.A. (2020). The olfactory basis of orchid pollination by mosquitoes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 117, 708–716.

Wynne, N.E., Lorenzo, M.G., & Vinauger, C. (2020). Mechanism and plasticity of vectors’ host-seeking behavior. Current Opinion in Insect Science 40, 1–5.

Chandrasegaran, K., Lahondère, C., Escobar, L.E., & Vinauger, C. (2020). Linking mosquito ecology, traits, behavior, and disease transmission. Trends in Parasitology 36, 393–403.

Ajayi, O.M., Eilerts, D.F., Bailey, S.T., Vinauger, C., & Benoit, J.B. (2020). Do mosquitoes sleep? Trends in Parasitology 36, 888–897.

Vinauger, C., Van Breugel, F., Locke, L.T., Tobin, K.K.S., Dickinson, M.H., Fairhall, A.L., Akbari, O.S., & Riffell, J.A. (2019). Visual-olfactory integration in the human disease vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. Current Biology 29, 2509–2516.

Vinauger, C. (2019). Vector cognition and neurobiology. Current Opinion in Insect Science 34, 68–72.

Vinauger, C., Lahondère, C., Wolff, G.H., Locke, L.T., Liaw, J.E., Parrish, J.Z., Akbari, O.S., Dickinson, M.H., & Riffell, J.A. (2018). Modulation of host learning in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Current Biology 28, 333–344.

Eilerts, D., Bose, E., VanderGiessen, M., Broxton, K., & Vinauger, C. (2018). Circadian regulation of olfactory behavior in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Entomology 2018, Entomological Society of America.

Rusch, C., Roth, E., Vinauger, C., & Riffell J.A. (2017) Honeybees in a virtual reality environment learn unique combinations of colour and shape. Journal of Experimental Biology, jeb. 164731

​Lutz, E., Lahondere, C., Vinauger, C. & Riffell, J.A. (2017) Olfactory learning and chemical ecology of olfaction in disease vector mosquitoes: A life history perspective. Current Opinion in Insect Science 20, 75-83