Her team has netted 90 species, and not all are bad blood-suckers
Feng Zengkun Straits Times 14 Jul 12;
NOT all mosquitoes are feared bloodsuckers that carry diseases, says Mrs Lam-Phua Sai Gek.
The 61-year-old scientist has spent almost two-thirds of her life studying the six-legged insect and marvelling at its many-splendoured forms.
The chief curator of the mozzies for the National Environment Agency has helped catalogue more than 6,000 specimens, with some dating to the 1970s. 'Some have dried up and the wings fallen off,' she said wistfully.
'Not all mosquitoes bite people and not all are disease carriers,' she added. 'When I look at them under a microscope, they are all different. They have different colours, different features, and you can feel their beauty.'
The case-mounted specimens line the shelves at the NEA's Environmental Health Institute in Buona Vista where Mrs Lam leads an eight-strong team. The scientists catalogue and archive the species and breed some for research.
Of the 137 species known to exist here, NEA has netted 90.
It is a job that can come with horror-movie moments. Thirty years ago, Mrs Lam was dissecting a mosquito when tiny thread-like worms crawled out of its corpse.
Instead of screaming, she called her colleagues over and mounted the worms on a slide. They turned out to be filarial parasites that can burrow under human skin and cause elephantiasis, a grotesque swelling of body parts.
'That was a high point of my career. I had never seen such worms before,' said Mrs Lam during an interview with The Straits Times at her workplace on Thursday.
The institute, set up in 2002, consolidated various research arms. It studies vector-borne diseases and environmental and food hygiene to support public health operations and guide policy decisions.
Its laboratories, some of which are stacked with swarms of boxed mosquitoes, have security protocols to prevent the insects from escaping and breeding outside. These range from a rice cooker for boiling to death any mosquito eggs on material to be discarded, to exhaust vents fitted with mosquito nets.
The insects are pampered with a specially prepared solution of 10 per cent sugar and vitamin B. 'Must keep them healthy,' said Mrs Lam affectionately.
The team updates a mosquito distribution map of Singapore and has produced booklets and a more in-depth chart to help others identify different species.
During the 2008 chikungunya outbreak, the researchers captured mosquitoes to screen them for the virus.
The institute has modernised. For decades, the researchers had strained their eyes to identify the mosquitoes, using a microscope.
Last year, a new DNA tagging method was introduced. Now, when researchers have difficulties identifying an insect, they pull off three of its legs and put it through the DNA tagging system.
Mrs Lam, who has two daughters and whose original ambition was to be a science teacher, said tracking mozzies has brought her full circle.
'I was Chinese-educated and had to go through an English course to be a teacher. I was afraid I wouldn't make the cut, so I took this job instead,' she said. 'But now I find myself still teaching people - just about mosquitoes instead.'
She has a soft spot for a gentle giant. With a wingspan and length of more than 1cm, the Toxorhynchites or elephant mosquito dwarfs other mosquitoes. It has a metallic, iridescent sheen with shifting rainbow colours.
The adult mosquito drinks only nectar from flowers 'and even its larvae prey only on other mosquito larvae', she said.
'It's a people-friendly mosquito, and one of the most beautiful things in the world.'
