From AAAS:
Prize Winner’s Research Reveals Hidden Role of Microbiota in Mosquito-borne Disease
For his work in revealing the hidden role of the microbiota in mosquito-borne disease, Yibin Zhu, a research associate professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, is the winner of the 2026 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize. The prize rewards innovative research by young investigators working on attributes of the microbiota with the potential to guide therapeutic interventions.
“Pathogens have taught us many of the foundational principles of infectious disease. Yet my work has convinced me that some of the most powerful regulators of transmission are neither pathogens nor hosts but the microbial communities that inhabit them,” writes the author in his prize-winning essay.
Zhu’s work highlights how microbiota from both the hosts and vectors can either promote or suppress virus transmission, depending on where they act in the transmission cycle.
“There were many exciting entries for the NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize in 2026, and the quality of the research and the essays from the prize winners was truly outstanding,” said Sarah Ross, associate editor at Science.
Mosquito-borne diseases, such as Zika virus and dengue, arise through interactions among viruses, hosts, mosquitoes and their environments. While microbiota are known to affect host immunity and physiology, research has traditionally focused on viruses or mosquito vectors, overlooking the microbes that connect them.
Zhu’s work aims to fill this gap by investigating how microbes influence multiple stages of the disease transmission cycle, including mosquito attraction to infected hosts and viral infection within mosquitoes.
Zhu and his colleagues’ research has found that in infected hosts, viral infection altered the skin immune environment, suppressing the antimicrobial peptide RELMα and allowing acetophenone-producing skin bacteria to expand.
Increased acetophenone production made infected hosts more attractive to mosquitoes, potentially enhancing virus transmission.
What’s more, a naturally occurring bacterial symbiont in mosquitoes, Rosenbergiella_YN46, strongly reduced dengue and Zika virus infection in both disease-carrying Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquito species.
After blood feeding, the bacterium secreted an enzyme that acidified the mosquito gut, prematurely triggering irreversible changes in viral envelope proteins and rendering the viruses noninfectious. The symbiote microbe imposed no detectable fitness cost on mosquitoes and was more abundant in regions with lower dengue incidence.
According to Zhu, understanding this “invisible hand” of the microbiota may help us rethink how vector-borne diseases emerge and how they might finally be controlled.
Zhu received an MSc from Xiamen University in the laboratory of Ningshao Xia and a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University. After completing his postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Gong Cheng at Tsinghua University, he joined the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Tsinghua University as a research associate professor in 2024. His research focuses on mosquito-borne virus transmission and the interactions among viruses, hosts, microbiota and mosquitoes.
“Now in its seventh year, this prize celebrates outstanding early-career scientists whose discoveries continue to expand the frontiers of microbiome science,” said Kohey Kitao, CEO of NOSTER Inc. “This year’s winning work demonstrates how microbial communities influence not only human health, but also the transmission of infectious diseases, opening an exciting new frontier for microbiome research. We hope discoveries like these will inspire innovative solutions that contribute to healthier and more sustainable societies worldwide.”
Q&A WITH THE 2026 NOSTER & SCIENCE WINNER
Your essay argues that microbes are the "missing link" in mosquito-borne disease transmission. What was the moment or finding that convinced you to rethink the traditional virus-mosquito narrative?
Zhu: What first motivated us was a simple question: How do mosquito-borne viruses spread so efficiently in nature? Early in an outbreak, only a few people are infected, yet mosquitoes somehow find these hosts and rapidly amplify transmission. When we investigated this question, we found that the virus itself was not directly attracting mosquitoes. Instead, infection altered the host's immune response, allowing certain skin bacteria to produce odor molecules that attract mosquitoes. We had always thought of microbes as background components, but this finding suggested they were actively influencing transmission. From that point on, I started to think of mosquito-borne disease as more than an interaction between a virus and a mosquito. The microbial community is also an important part of the transmission process.
One of your most surprising findings is that viruses can indirectly make infected hosts more attractive to mosquitoes by altering the skin microbiome. Why was that discovery so unexpected?
Zhu: At first, we found that virus-infected hosts attracted more mosquitoes because they released higher levels of the volatile compound acetophenone. The real surprise came when we asked where that acetophenone was coming from. We found that, in nature, acetophenone is produced mainly by plants and microbes, not by animals or viruses. That observation led us to examine the skin microbiota, where we discovered that viral infection reshaped the microbial community, enriching bacteria that produce acetophenone.
This finding showed that the virus was not acting alone. Instead, it was exploiting an existing relationship between the host and its microbiota to enhance its own transmission. It revealed how deeply interconnected biological systems are and how microbes can become essential factors in viral spread.
You describe the microbiota as an "invisible regulatory layer." How has that changed the way you think about controlling diseases like dengue and Zika?
Zhu: Traditionally, we have controlled mosquito-borne diseases by reducing mosquito populations or by developing antiviral drugs and vaccines. These approaches remain essential, but they also face challenges such as insecticide resistance and viral immune escape.
Our work suggests that microbial communities themselves can influence whether transmission occurs. By understanding and harnessing these naturally occurring microbial interactions, we may be able to reduce transmission in a way that is both sustainable and environmentally compatible. I see microbiota-based approaches as another tool that can complement existing strategies.
Your research also identified a naturally occurring mosquito gut bacterium that can block viral infection. What excites you most about the potential of using beneficial microbes instead of relying solely on insecticides or genetic modification?
Zhu: In our study, the bacterium blocked viral infection without imposing detectable fitness costs on the mosquito, suggesting that it could potentially persist in natural populations. More broadly, it reminds us that nature has already evolved many effective solutions. I think learning from nature often provides solutions that are both effective and sustainable.
Many people think of bacteria as something harmful. What do you hope the public understands about the beneficial role microbes can play in preventing disease?
Zhu: Most microbes are actually harmless, and many are beneficial. In fact, many are essential partners that help maintain healthy biological systems. They influence immunity, metabolism, development, and, as our work suggests, infectious disease transmission. I hope people come away with a more balanced view that microbes are not simply pathogens to eliminate but an important part of the natural world that we can better understand and potentially work with to improve health.
What are the biggest scientific or practical challenges that must be overcome before microbiota-based strategies can be used in real-world mosquito control programs?
Zhu: One major challenge is that microbial communities are highly dynamic. They vary across mosquito species, geographic regions, seasons and environmental conditions. We need to understand how stable beneficial microbes are in natural mosquito populations and whether their antiviral effects remain robust under field conditions. Another important challenge is developing practical ways to introduce or maintain these microbes at a population scale while ensuring environmental safety. Answering these questions will require both laboratory studies and long-term field work.
Looking ahead, what research question are you most eager to answer about the relationship between microbes, mosquitoes, and infectious diseases?
Zhu: There are two questions I am especially excited to pursue. The first is whether the beneficial bacterial symbionts we discovered can stably colonize wild mosquito populations and reduce virus transmission under natural field conditions. Laboratory studies are an important starting point, but interactions among microbes, mosquitoes, pathogens and the environment are much more complex in nature. Understanding how these interactions work in the field is one of the questions I am most eager to answer.
More broadly, I want to understand how microbial ecosystems assemble, remain stable, and evolve, and how they collectively influence the transmission of infectious diseases. I think looking at mosquito-borne diseases through this ecosystem will not only deepen our understanding of disease transmission but also help identify new and more sustainable ways to control these diseases.
If readers remember just one message from your essay, what do you hope it is?
Zhu: I hope readers remember that understanding infectious diseases sometimes requires looking beyond the pathogen itself. For complex diseases, especially those transmitted among multiple hosts, the key drivers of transmission may lie within the broader network of interactions among pathogens, hosts, vectors and the invisible microbial communities they harbor. If we understand these microbial partners better, we may find new ways to control infectious diseases. Sometimes, the most important drivers of disease are the ones we do not immediately see.
FINALISTS
Erik Bakkeren, a researcher at the University of Calgary, is a finalist for his essay, “Ecology of the gut microbiome: microbial competition can be harnessed to prevent and cure deadly diseases.” In his essay, Bakkeren discusses how the community composition and diversity of the microbiome influences its ability to protect against disease-causing pathogens.
Taichi Suzuki, a researcher at Arizona State University, is a finalist for his essay, “The missing thriftiness: host-microbial coevolution and its influence on human health.” This work explores the ecology and evolution of host-microbial interactions and their consequences for mammalian biology and health.
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