The Fight Against Mosquitos: HAN Interns on the Hunt for "DEET 2.0"

Nobody likes mosquito bites. So the excitement about mosquitoes that refused to sting was quite intense among HAN lecturer Julianne van Ingen Schenau and her interns. In the labs of TropIQ Health Sciences at Pivot Park in Oss, Julianne and her interns tested 30 potential anti-mosquito agents, revealing that 8 of them were effective in keeping mosquitoes away from test blood samples.

TropIQ Health Sciences is a company that develops new technology platforms specifically suited for drug discovery against vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever. In this collaborative project, Julianne and her HAN BioCentre interns focused on the chemical component for new anti-mosquito drugs.

"Almost everyone knows DEET as the go-to mosquitoes repellent," Julianne explains. "But DEET has some drawbacks: it requires high concentrations, lasts only a few hours, and can damage clothing. This internship project aimed to find a “DEET 2.0".

At HAN BioCentre, one of the key research areas is drug discovery, which is also the field of Julianne’s Chemistry interns. The interns are perfectly positioned near Pivot Park in Oss, home to numerous pharmaceutical companies.

"Through a collaboration with Google AI, TropIQ Health Sciences had already developed a computational model that identified 238 molecules as potential DEET substitutes. The students got to work on the molecular structure of 50 of these in the BioCentre lab, by setting up side groups. "That means creating compounds until you find one that is effective as a repellent".

The interns from HAN and Avans immediately gained firsthand experience in tackling the inevitable setbacks in their future lives as chemists."Setbacks are a part of the job", Julianne says with a laugh, recalling her own experiences. “Sometimes, you want to make certain compounds, but two molecules you want to combine just refuse to bond, no matter how much you heat or add a catalyst. That, too, is part of research."

But celebrating successes is definitely part of it, too. In TropIQ’s Health Sciences lab, as many as 8 of the potential anti-mosquito agents were found to work. "We went to observe the tests one day. A week later, I was still buzzing with excitement. It was so cool."

"These results give TropIQ a strong foundation to build on, though much work remains before the repellent can be seen in stores. Next steps include investigating how long each agent remains effective - a task now in TropIQ’s hands. This is what makes research at HAN so exciting: what you create in the lab is often directly applied by companies."

Are you interested in an internship in the field of drug development? Email us at stage.atbc@han.nl. To learn more about HAN BioCentre’s work, visit han.nl/biocentre or contact info.hanbiocentre@han.nl.