logo Department of Zoology

The Tinbergen Building
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PS
Tel: +44 (0)1865 271234

Nina Alphey

Dr Nina Alphey

Postdoctoral research assistant, Mathematical Ecology Research Group

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, St Anne's College

Contacts

Email: nina.alphey@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Address: D50, Department of Zoology, The Tinbergen Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS
Phone: +44 (0)1865 281985
Fax: +44 (0)1865 310447

Research Interests

Pest insects do enormous damage to human health (through transmission of diseases such as dengue fever and malaria) and to agriculture (through damage to crops or livestock). Insecticide resistance is widely reported. The public increasingly wants more sustainable methods used to control pests. The relatively recent development of genetic transformation techniques for pest insects has opened up the possibility of employing novel methods to mitigate the harm done by insects. My research uses mathematical modelling to analyse these new biological approaches.

Two broad classes of genetic strategy have emerged: (1) “population replacement”, in which the insect vector population is converted, by spreading a genetic construct through it, into a “refractory” strain that is unable (or less able) to transmit the disease; (2) population suppression, in which the aim is to reduce the number of pest insects, for example using autocidal genetic constructs.

Population suppression strategies are closer to field use, so I have focussed mainly on those, particularly on a system called RIDL® (Release of Insects carrying a Dominant Lethal), which was developed in Oxford, originally in the University's Department of Zoology and now at Oxitec Ltd (http://www.oxitec.com), a biotechnology spin-out. This strategy is based on the Sterile Insect Technique, an area-wide method of biological pest control in which large numbers of sterile pest insects are released; these mate with wild insects, but no offspring result, so the population’s reproductive potential is reduced and numbers are suppressed. Various genetic improvements and variants have been produced or proposed and I develop theoretical frameworks and mathematical models to investigate the effect of applying these techniques. We are exploring the community ecology implications using competition/interaction models. We are developing further models to assess the cost-effectiveness of novel vector control strategies for reducing the burden of dengue, a major mosquito-borne viral disease, and of genetic strategies to suppress the olive fruit fly, a major pest of that crop. Using population genetic and population dynamic models, we are assessing the circumstances under which hypothetical resistance to the lethal mechanism might pose a significant threat to the effectiveness of releases for population control. I have also developed models to examine the use of RIDL releases to enhance other pest control methods by managing resistance.

Other Details

Selected Publications

Primary research journals:

Other: