Research Project: Native Mycobiomes of Anopheles: Their role on the Host Fitness, Transmission to progeny and Interactions with Plasmodium Parasite.

Nattoh is a DRIP PhD scholar supervised by Drs. Jeremy Herren and Joel Bargul (icipe), and Prof. Gabriel Magoma (PAUSTI/JKUAT). His research goal is to bioprospect and identify mosquito eukaryotic symbionts (mycobiomes) that stably associate with Anopheles spp while conferring minimal fitness cost and elucidate their association with plasmodium. Nattoh is currently establishing novel candidate mycobiomes that could be exploited in paratransgenesis to deliver antiplasmodium molecules to control Malaria.

Nattoh completed his undergraduate studies in Biomedical Science from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and MSc in Molecular Biology & Biotechnology from PAUSTI/JKUAT where he registered and obtained two Patents on utilization of fungi mycelium.

He is currently registered for a PhD at Pan African University, Institute for Basic Sciences Technology & Innovation (PAUSTI, Kenya) and is supported by scholarship from PAU.