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Singapore researcher develops ultrasound device to kill larvae
 A SINGAPORE engineer has found a novel way to kill mosquitoes by zapping their larvae with an ultrasound wand.
Dr Alfred Tan, a researcher at the Smart Innovation Centre located on the National University of Singapore’s campus, was able to modify ultrasound waves to rupture the cells in a mosquito larva.
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart) centre was established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2007, to research areas such as infectious diseases, and environmental sensing and modelling.
Ultrasound technology is used in medicine mainly for imaging, and non-destructive testing for the aviation industry. It is also employed in jewellery and watch cleaning.
Dr Tan, from MIT’s department of mechanical engineering, said that mosquito larvae which live near the surface of stagnant water, for example in drains, would be “easy kill” for his invention.
A stick with a small transducer generating the ultrasound is dipped into the water and turned on.
The range, radius and frequency of the ultrasound are adjustable. So far, it works well in the lab, and Dr Tan is working to miniaturise the ultrasound system to make it portable for field applications.
No chemicals are used, so there is no harm to the environment, unlike other methods such as superchlorination, which involves putting large amounts of chlorine into stagnant water to kill larvae.
Nor should it pose harm to other living organisms nearby as the ultrasound waves can be focused on the mosquito larvae, though further safety tests need to be conducted.
Dr Tan plans to test the device in the field with the help of the National Environment Agency (NEA), which provided him with mosquito larvae samples for his research.
“On the ground, we are interested to test it out in places that you wouldn’t expect to have any eco-friendly organisms (such as other water insects and fish) in the water.
“For example, construction sites, which have water containers holding non-potable water used for cleaning, sometimes have infestations,” Dr Tan said.
The NEA said it was keen to see if Dr Tan’s technology could help in the fight against dengue. The agency has been working with him by sharing inspection methods for mosquitobreeding hot spots.
Dengue is an infectious disease spread by the Aedes mosquito which can cause a high fever and can be fatal. Although research is gaining ground worldwide, there is still no vaccine or cure.
Bucking the trend elsewhere, dengue cases in Singapore have dropped over the past four years, from 8,826 in 2007 to 4,497 last year.
As of Sept 11, there have been 3,405 reported cases for the year.
Based on the data from the last 40 years, Dr Tan said dengue cases spike every six to seven years, so the next spike could occur in 2012.
He hopes a commercial ultrasound device can be developed by then.
Using ultrasound to kill mosquito larvae has been experimented with before in the United States, but to date, there are few commercial products.
Dr Tan’s research is funded under Smart’s Ignition grant, which provides up to $50,000.
The grant allows researchers to test out ideas, create prototypes and research the commercial market for potential applications.
For projects that are proven and commercially viable, there is a larger grant of up to $250,000.
The innovation centre, which will be funding about 15 projects yearly, has already shown results by spinning off its first start-up company.
Visterra Singapore, a biotech outfit launched in July this year, focuses on developing new therapies, vaccines and diagnostic tools for infectious diseases such as influenza and dengue.
Smart is the first centre, out of a total of five, under the National Research Foundation’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (Create) programme.
Create aims to bring world-class research and innovation to Singapore, where both international and local researchers can interact and cooperate with one another.
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