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Story about Kline's research

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Entomologist Wins Tech-Transfer Award from ARS

BELTSVILLE, Md., Feb. 13, 2002—Developing new and improved attractants and trapping systems that provide early detection, surveillance and control of bloodsucking insects has won entomologist Daniel L. Kline a top award for technology transfer from the Agricultural Research Service.

ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific research agency, will honor Kline and other award-winning scientists today at a 1 p.m. ceremony at the agency’s Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Kline will receive a plaque and a cash award.

Kline works at the ARS Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE) in Gainesville, Fla. The center’s Mosquito and Fly Research Unit develops biological controls and other alternative technologies to control mosquitos and biting flies that transmit protozoan parasites, viruses and filarial worms to humans and animals.

“Currently, chemical insecticides are the only practical technology for emergency control of mosquitos and biting flies when diseases such as West Nile fever break out,” said Edward B. Knipling, acting administrator for ARS. “Within the next decade, however, the availability of insecticides for mosquito control will be constrained by biological, ecological, safety, legal and economic factors. Dr. Kline’s findings have the potential to manage mosquito population levels below the annoyance and disease thresholds to humans and livestock, and at the same time reduce reliance on routine chemical insecticide use.”

Kline has developed technology to increase attraction of mosquitos to more efficient trapping devices and has discovered attractant blends, based primarily on human skin emanations, that draw female Aedes aegypti mosquitos at high levels.

Kline has teamed up with private industry to transfer his findings to commercial use. These partnerships have resulted in two patents and two patents pending. Commercial products have resulted from these partnerships, including those with trade names such as the Dragonfly trap, Conceal and Octenol Lure.

A native of Reading, Pa., Kline received a B.A. in biology from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 1969. He received an M.S. in entomology from The Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and his Ph.D. in entomology from North Carolina State University in 1975.