Bart Nols - the uncompromising killer of mosquitoes

There is quite a bit of bluish light on the stage - just enough to illuminate a person who has just sat down in bed. You hear a mosquito buzzing nearby, and then a slap. “Gotcha,” says the man. The light comes on, and he points to a bloody spot on his right hand. The scene takes place in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and the man is a Dutch entomologist, Bart Nols. Still sitting in bed, he peers into the audience through his round glasses. “Mosquitoes. I hate it, he says. "And you?". Then he gets up, and, remaining in shorts and a polo shirt, delivers a 10-minute speech entitled "Three new ways to kill mosquitoes."

Nols studied mosquitoes for 25 years. And the feeling is that he comes up with a new way to kill a mosquito every year. At the 2012 TEDx conference, he proposed three ideas: simulating a human smell to lure mosquitoes into traps; training dogs to recognize mosquito larvae to identify breeding sites for mosquitoes; filling the blood with a mosquito-killing drug when bitten.

Since then, he came up with new schemes: the use of drones to spray insecticides, a special fungus that kills mosquitoes. The latest plan, a change to African homes that turns them into mosquito traps, is being tested at a cost of $ 10 million. In the war of people against mosquitoes, Nols is one of the most creative warriors.
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And without creativity can not do. Despite decades of research, mosquitoes are still the most deadly animals in the world, and they spread diseases that infect hundreds of millions of people a year, killing 600,000 people annually. Insecticides invented decades ago are still in use . “Where are the innovations?” Nols asks.


We turn the house into a trap: the space under the roof is sealed, and only the pipes inside which the nets covered with insecticide are mounted are left

His passion led to an unusual career. He won both the Ig Nobel Prize and the prestigious Aikman Medal in the category "tropical medicine". He has an impressive list of high-level publications, but he believes that theoretical science does not bring proper results. And in 2012, he left Wageningen University (WUR) to become a co-founder of the startup In2Care, selling mosquito traps with imitation of human odor. He combines, at times frightening, predictions about diseases carried by mosquitoes with the ability to communicate with the public. Others call them self-promotion abilities.

Many argue that it is difficult to work with him, and he has already argued with his colleagues several times. Just last month, after an interview with Science, Nols announced that his collaboration with In2Care would end soon. “I think one of Bart's strengths is his energy and his desire to change the world, saving lives,” said entomologist Matthew Thomas of Pennsylvania State University, who is testing mosquito traps in Africa. “The downside is that his stubbornness involves him in conflicts.”

Nolse began to appear early in the news. While still a graduate student at WUR, he and a colleague Ruurd de Jong tried to pick up a human smell that attracts mosquitoes. They lured mosquitoes to everyone, from pads that spent some time in the armpits or in the groin area to used tampons. One day Nolse put dirty socks on his cage. “And they are crazy about it,” he says. There is often a cheese smell at the feet, so the next question was - does cheese work as bait? It turned out that mosquitoes can not resist the Limburg cheese, originally from the same province where Nols was born.

This was all Nolse: strange research with a serious purpose. “The bacterium that gives flavor to some of these cheeses could actually pass from human skin, and therefore, it is possible to attract malaria mosquitoes with this smell,” he says. When Parasitology Today published a study in 1996, Nols wrote a letter to The Lancet, boasting that medical entomologists now take cheese on trips. “It’s still unknown if they managed to attract other mosquito species with Limburg cheese - and if not, you can always eat it.”

Journalists and the Nobel Committee liked this story, but, according to some scholars, the practical benefits of the research were small. “The story is good, but you won't use cheese to lure mosquitoes,” says Janet Hemingway, an entomologist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), Britain. Today, scientists are still working on a good substance to attract mosquitoes. Nols says they are still testing cheese-based blends.

After receiving his degree, Nols worked for 5 years at the International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi (ICIPE), three of whom led a malaria control program at Mbit Point station in Kenya, on the shores of Lake Victoria. In 2003, he joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which has long been conducting research on the use of radiation to sterilize insects and reduce their populations. He returned to the WUR in 2006.

“My whole life is connected with mosquitoes. They are my passion, Nols writes on his website. - I love to explore them. But I prefer to destroy them. ” The flow of his proposals for the destruction of mosquitoes causes mixed reactions. “His approach is similar to using a shotgun,” says Philip McCall, an entomologist at LSTM. “Maybe if he had a more accurate weapon, he could more effectively convince people to use it.” But Andreas Rose, an entomologist from the German company Biogents, believes that Nols was in a stormy activity, although he noted that he sometimes inadvertently uses other people's ideas. “He reminds the composer to hear the melody on the radio, which he then incorporates into his work,” says Rose.

The presence of Nols in the media surprises many of his colleagues, some of whom consider him a panicky. He often warns of the threat of epidemics and exotic mosquitoes. For example, when the Asian bush mosquito Aedes japonicus showed up in the Netherlands, Nols said that he could transmit Zika virus, and then it would require the widespread destruction of mosquitoes. “Sometimes we are surprised to hear his confident statements,” said the representative of the Netherlands State Institute of Health and Environment in an interview with NRC Handelsblad.

Nols is a fan of Fred Sopri, the legendary American scientist from the Rockefeller Foundation, who helped Brazil in the 1930s to get rid of the invasion of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the main distributors of malaria in Africa. Soper, being an authoritarian figure, hired thousands of workers and organized a military campaign similar to the treatment of buildings and breeding sites of mosquitoes with the poison called “Paris Greens” (Vert de Paris) - mixed acetate-arsenite copper (II). “Soper had the energy, passion and leadership qualities necessary for such a large campaign,” Nols wrote in a 2009 book.

“He works without compromise and promotes the Nolso's vision of the world,” says McCall. “In search of support, he is pushing his ideas very strongly,” says Thomas, and sometimes his rhetoric is ahead of science. "He contributes as a factor of change and as one who tries to shake up the system."

His work at ICIPE ended dramatically after he accused a colleague of wrongdoing, and this accusation was rejected by the then director of the institute, Hans Herren. Herren says he fired Nols for failing to observe the chain of command, and even called the police when Nols blocked the main entrance to Mbit Point, trying to gain control of the research station. “It is a pity that it happened, Nols had cool ideas. But malaria can be conquered only by working together. ” Nols says that Herren confused something about the incident that took place 14 years ago: “I have never engaged in protests or demonstrations,” he says. Both claim that they have already buried the axes of war.

Irish entomologist Gerry Killin resigned from the ICIPE at about the same time, in protest against the dismissal of Nols. “Do I always like Nols to approach me and other people?” Not. But this does not mean that he is wrong, ”he says. Killeen, now working at the Ifakar Health Institute in Tanzania, says Nols spawned a great working atmosphere at Mbit Point. "People felt that they were doing something important, that they could make a contribution, develop like scientists, and go international."

Nolsa's most ambitious project made him take a closer look at his talents and problems. In 2012, In2Care entered into an agreement with Biogents and others, working on a project funded by the European Union to develop new ways to destroy mosquitoes. Partners met in Tanzania in February 2013 to discuss the project. “Looking at different houses, we settled in the shadow of a mango tree and started brainstorming,” recalls Rose. As a result, the “eaves-pipe” was invented. African houses have open roofs, and mosquitoes use them to penetrate. It was decided to lay open parts with bricks and install plastic pipes that were open to the outside and allow mosquitoes to fly into them. And in the house the pipes are closed and contain an electrostatic network covered with insecticide.



The concept combines several ideas. Instead of chemicals to attract, he uses people in the house as bait. The network, originally designed to filter pollen, gives the insecticide particles an electrical charge, and they better adhere to insects. Killeen says the idea is “brilliant. I would like to think of such a thing. ” In 2014, the first ledge pipes were tested in Tanzania. At the end of the project, the partners received funding of $ 10 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for random control tests on the Ivory Coast. In 20 villages, the houses are equipped with eaves pipes, and bedside canopies with insecticide are distributed to residents. In 20 other villages only canopies are used. The team will analyze the blood of 50-60 children from each village for the presence of malaria every 2 weeks. Results will be ready by 2019.

It looks like the chance of Nols's life - an opportunity to see the implementation of at least one plan. But his conflict with In2Care made his participation in the project impossible. The company says that Nols does not work for them anymore, but the co-founders - including two young entomologists from the WUR - refused to answer questions. Nols says he will leave the company in the near future, but does not disclose details. “I am always looking for something new and studying everything,” he says. "And not always like other people, let's say this."

In his book of 2009, Nols draws a sobering conclusion about his scientific work carried out by him until that time. “I doubt that the knowledge I gained helped to save the life of at least one African child,” he says. A few years later, he is already more optimistic - with traps and projects for eaves pipes, "I believe that we have contributed to improving health care."

But he says that you can do a lot more. In his book, Nols writes that the problem with mosquito control is that there is too much talk around it and more and more projects rely on “community participation” that is hard to control. He scornfully commented on the example of Aruba, where, at the height of the epidemic of dengue fever, schoolchildren were distributed with letters asking their parents to destroy mosquito breeding sites around their homes. “A soper would have cleaned the entire island, an area not exceeding 200 square kilometers, in a few months,” he writes.

Therefore, in 2010, he took part in founding another company, Soper Strategies, trying to combine his idol’s approaches with modern technologies to rid the islands and countries of mosquitoes through “carefully planned destruction campaigns executed with military precision and discipline”, as written in his site. Candidate countries are Cape Verde, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Nols hoped to use Aruba Island to demonstrate the success of Soper’s approach, but could not raise money. Other customers have not come up with offers.

Nols believes that all this is a matter of time. In his book, he discusses whether a new soper will ever appear. And it becomes clear who he means.