Congratulations to MMFS PhD candidate Ashleigh Peck for being awarded funding from the prestigious Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment towards her PhD research project on mosquito-borne pathogens in urban areas of Perth.

Ashleigh's 2-year mosquito surveillance project aims to understand the prevalence of mosquito-borne pathogens in urban environments. Under the supervision of Dr Amanda Ash, Professor Alan Lymbery and Dr Siobhan Egan from the MMFS Parasitology Department, Ashleigh has collected and identified over 4,000 mosquitoes.

Mosquito traps were provided by the Western Australian Department of Health together with a wealth of background information on viruses transmitted by mosquitos. After collection, Ashleigh meticulously sorted the mosquitoes according to species, location, and date before screening them for mosquito-borne parasites using PCR and viruses with the Illumina platform's next-generation sequencing.

Thanks to the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Ashleigh received $18,185 in total funding across three years. This support allowed her to expand her research significantly. She was able to screen an additional 200 mosquito pools for mosquito-borne parasites and support viral metagenomic screening using RNAseq. The funding enabled her to conduct genetic barcoding of the collected mosquitoes, offering insights into hidden biodiversity that morphology alone could not provide.

Recently, Ashleigh was also awarded funding to attend and present at the Joint Parasitology Conference in Würzburg, Germany, in March 2025. She received an honourable mention for her presentation, furthering her disease surveillance research and establishing valuable connections with European and UK researchers.

Congratulations, Ashleigh, on this fantastic achievement and for advancing our understanding of mosquito-borne pathogens through your dedicated research.