Leon Hugo

Dr Leon Hugo is a medical entomologist conducting research into the biology of mosquitoes, host-parasite interactions and the development of novel control strategies against arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses). Dr Hugo is an Honorary Associate Professor through the School of Biomedical Sciences and is also the Academic Lead of the Mosquito Control Laboratory at QIMR Berghofer medical research institute, Brisbane. Dr Hugo has developed and applied experimental mosquito models of arbovirus infection for over 15 years to establish the risk of arbovirus transmission in Australia and new biological controls. Dr Hugo works with physical containment/biosecurity level (PC/BSL) 2 and 3 arboviruses, including dengue, Zika, Japanese encephalitis and chikungunya viruses and performs fundamental research on Wolbachia bacteria and Insect-specific virus (ISV) microbial control agents. Dr Hugo has published 60+ research articles with over 160 collaborators, from academic, medical, government and corporate sectors, across 18 countries. Topic areas his publications have had greatest impact were Japanese Encephalitis and Socioeconomic Impact, Wolbachia’s Role in Mosquito Population Replacement and Insecticide Resistance Mechanisms in Aedes aegypti.

Dr Hugo’s team maintains a living library of native and exotic mosquito species and conducts infection and transmission studies in state-of-the-art PC2 and PC3 insectaries. Research themes including mosquito vector competence, climate change impacts on mosquito-borne disease transmission risk, mosquito and arbovirus surveillance and genomics and novel control strategies, including biological control and the use of endectocides.