Brian D. Foy
Assistant Professor

Phone: 491-3470
Fax: 491-1815
Email: Brian.Foy@colostate.edu
Office: B409 Microbiology
Lab: B432 Microbiology

 

Degrees

• B.Sc. - University of Notre Dame
• Ph.D. - Tulane University

Research Interests

• Vector Biology, Arbovirology, Malaria, and Immunological interactions at the interface of hosts, vectors, and pathogens.
• I study vector biology and the interactions of vectors with their hosts and with vector pathogens. While much of my research employs molecular, proteomic and genomic techniques, I strive to develop these studies and techniques into practical applications for controlling arthropod-borne diseases. I maintain a laboratory on the main CSU campus for molecular, immunological, and in vitro cell culture studies; our work involving infecting mosquitoes with pathogens is located at the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory and in our BSL-3 laboratories on the CSU Foothills campus.

• Ongoing projects include:

  Intense transmission of malaria and dengue, by members of the Anopheles gambiae complex in sub-Saharan Africa and by Aedes aegypti in urban localities across the tropics respectively, is primarily driven by the capacity for these vector mosquitoes to bite humans frequently and almost exclusively. Insecticides remain the primary interventions for malaria and dengue disease control, however, the dispersal of insecticides into the environment is not ideal as they are overused by agriculture, foster pesticide resistance, and can be environmentally harmful. I am interested in exploiting the vectorial capacity of the above mosquitoes to kill them before they can transmit their pathogens by creating and employing mosquitocidal vaccines and drugs. Toward this end, we are discovering novel mosquito antigens that can be targeted by vaccines and drugs and are developing model systems to evaluate the efficacy of such control approaches.

  Mosquito-borne viruses are re-emerging in endemic areas and rapidly spreading into new ranges across the globe (eg. West Nile virus in the Americas, Rift Valley fever virus in the Middle East, O'nyong-nyong virus in Africa). As a fundemental process for transmission, these arboviruses must replicate in mosquito gut tissues, disseminate throughout the mosquito body, and eventually infect the mosquito salivary glands. Using alphavirus transducing systems that express green fluorescent protein, we have been able to characterize routes of arboviral dissemination in mosquitoes. We have also made use of currently available genome data for Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and with these data are beginning to characterize barriers to dissemination in vector mosquitoes. Through these studies, we are understanding that mosquitoes have natural innate immune defenses against arboviral infections that are primarily driven by RNA interference. At the same time, we are recognizing that some arboviruses have evolved mechanisms to avoid this innate immunity. The systems we are using to study these concepts are O'nyong-nyong virus in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes and Sindbis viruses in Aedes aegypti and Culex tritaeniorhynchus mosquitoes.

Selected Publications

Pub Med for Foy BD.

• Keene KM, Foy BD, Sanchez-Vargas I, Beaty BJ, Blair CD, Olson KE. RNA interference acts as a natural antiviral response to O'nyong-nyong virus (Alphavirus; Togaviridae) infection of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. PNAS. In Press.
• Brault AC, Foy BD, Myles KM, Higgs S, Weaver SC, Olson KE, Miller BR, Powers AM. Development of O'nyong-nyong virus vectors for infection and expression studies in the malaria-transmitting mosquito Anopheles gambiae. Insect Mol Biol. In Press.
• Foy BD, Myles KM, Pierro DJ, Sanchez-Vargas I, Uhlirova M, Jindra M, Beaty BJ, Olson KE. Development of a new Sindbis virus transducing system and its characterization in three Culicine mosquitoes and two Lepidopterans. Insect Mol Biol. 2004. Feb;13(1):89-100.
• Uhlirova M, Foy BD, Beaty BJ, Olson KE, Riddiford LM, Jindra M. Use of Sindbis virus-mediated RNAi to demonstrate a conserved role of Broad-Complex in insect metamophosis. PNAS. 2003. Dec;100(26):15607-12.
• Foy BD, Magalhaes T, Injera WE, Sutherland I, Devenport M, Thanawastien A, Ripley D, Cárdenas-Freytag L, Beier JC. Induction of mosquitocidal activity in mice immunized with Anopheles gambiae midgut cDNA. Infect Immun. 2003. Apr;71(4):2032-40.
• Pierro DL, Myles KM, Foy BD, Beaty BJ, Olson KE. Development of a Sindbis virus that allows disseminated expression of green fluorescing protein in Aedes aegypti following per os infection. Insect Mol Biol. 2003. Apr;12(2):107-16.
• Killeen GF, Foy BD, Frohn RH, Impoinvil D, Williams A, Beier JC. Enrichment of a single clone from a high diversity library of phage-displayed antibodies by panning with Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) midgut homogenate. Bull Entomol Res. 2003 Feb;93(1):31-7.
• Foy BD, Killeen GF, Magalhaes T, Beier JC. Immunological targeting of critical insect antigens. Am Entomol. 2002. 48(3).
• Foy BD, Killeen GF, Frohn RH, Impoinvil D, Beier JC. Characterization of a unique human antibody fragment isolated through phage display selection on membrane-immobilized Anopheles gambiae midguts antigens. J Immunol Meth. 2002. Mar 1; 261(1-2):73-83.
• Killeen GF, McKenzie FE, Foy BD, Beier JC. The availability of potential hosts as a determinant of feeding behaviours and malaria transmission by African mosquito populations. Trans Roy Soc Trop Med Hyg. 2001. 95:469-476.
• Killeen GF, Foy BD, Shahabuddin M, Roake W, Williams A, Vaughan TJ, Beier JC. Tagging bloodmeals with phagemids allows feeding of multiple-sample arrays to single cages of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) and the recovery of single recombinant antibody fragment genes from individual insects. J Med Entomol. 2000. Jul;37(4):528-33.
• Killeen GF, McKenzie FE, Foy BD, Schieffelin C, Billingsley PF, Beier JC. A simplified model for predicting malaria entomologic inoculation rates based on entomologic and parasitologic parameters relevant to control. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2000. May;62(5):535-44.
• Killeen GF, McKenzie FE, Foy BD, Schieffelin C, Billingsley PF, Beier JC. The potential impact of integrated malaria transmission control on entomologic inoculation rate in highly endemic areas. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2000. May;62(5):545-51.