Dr Amy Lynd

Post Doctoral Research Associate

Amy Lynd obtained a BSc in Genetics from the University of Liverpool in 1998 and an MSc in Sustainable Rural Development in the Tropics from Edinburgh University in 1999. She completed a PhD in 2008 at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine investigating the behavioural and evolutionary responses of Anopheles gambiae s.s. to insecticide treated bednets. She is currently working as a post-doctoral research assistant in the Vector Group.

Amy is currently involved with a large randomised control trial in Uganda to assess the performance of long-lasting insecticidal nets in conjunction with partners at IDRC (Uganda), LSTMH (UK), UCSF (USA) and the Ugandan Ministry of Health. This study was embedded in a national universal coverage campaign, which distributed over 10 million bednets, and involved 104 health sub-districts, an area covering nearly 50% of the country. The project comprised of community and entomological surveys which were conducted in ten enumeration areas in each of the 104 sub-health districts. The surveys were carried out prior to net distribution and then every 6 months for 2 years . Amy's research, as part of this project, focuses on the differential effects of PBO-treated nets versus conventional insecticide-treated nets, on the density and species composition of malaria vectors in the study site, and on the spread of insecticide resistance using molecular markers in Anopheles mosquitoes. Previously she has she developed transgenic technologies to further research into functional genomic studies of mosquitoes, including the establishment of the bipartite Gal4/UAS system which has been utilized for the study of insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae. She has also been involved with mosquito surveillance and behavioural studies in Burkina Faso, DRC and Kenya.

Selected publications

  • Effect of long-lasting insecticidal nets with and without piperonyl butoxide on malaria indicators in Uganda (LLINEUP): a pragmatic, cluster-randomised trial embedded in a … SG Staedke, S Gonahasa, G Dorsey, MR Kamya, C Maiteki-Sebuguzi, ... The Lancet 395 (10232), 1292-1303

    LLIN Evaluation in Uganda Project (LLINEUP): a cross-sectional survey of species diversity and insecticide resistance in 48 districts of Uganda A Lynd, S Gonahasa, SG Staedke, A Oruni, C Maiteki-Sebuguzi, G Dorsey, ... Parasites & vectors 12 (1), 1-10

    Insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae from the northern Democratic Republic of Congo, with extreme knockdown resistance (kdr) mutation frequencies revealed by a new … A Lynd, A Oruni, AE van’t Hof, JC Morgan, LB Naego, D Pipini, ... Malaria journal 17 (1), 1-8

    Development of the bi-partite Gal4-UAS system in the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae A Lynd, GJ Lycett PloS one 7 (2), e31552