Eric’s work on insecticide resistance focuses on two main aspects. The first aims to understand the importance of copy number variants and its association with insecticide resistance. Genome-wide analysis has shown that copy number variants have played an important role in the evolution of resistance, with repeated independent mutations in the same set of genes driven to high frequencies by positive selection, and association between these copy number variants and resistance to several insecticides. The second aspect aims to detect new genes and mutations involved in insecticide resistance and to build predictive models of insecticide resistance using genetic and transcriptomic data.

Eric is part of the analysis team for the anopheles gambiae 1000 Genomes project and the Vector Observatory. He is also a member of the Genomics for African Anopheles Resistance Diagnostics network, which is applying whole genome sequencing to detect new resistance mutations and to embed genetic entomological monitoring into field trials of new mosquito control tools.