In the tropics, mosquitoes can do more than leave you with an itchy bite. They can transmit dangerous viral illnesses, such as Zika, dengue fever and chikungunya, which have no treatments other than supportive care.
Scientists from The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology are collaborating on multi-institutional efforts to develop treatments for such diseases. A new federal grant, worth up to $3.7 million over five years, will accelerate their efforts to stop Zika virus infections.
A 2025 grant, also worth up to $3.7 million, supports the team’s work on another mosquito-borne threat, chikungunya. Both grants are from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.
“Tropical viral diseases, especially those that are spread by mosquitoes, pose a pandemic-level threat to Florida, the nation and the world,” said Thomas Bannister, Ph.D., a medicinal chemist at The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute. “Recent outbreaks show us that we need to have antiviral drug options available to treat affected patients before the outbreak is widespread.”
Chikungunya is a nasty virus that takes its name from an African word meaning “to bend up,” referring to the intense muscle and joint pain it causes, and the long-term arthritis and full-body fibromyalgia pain it can leave in its wake. In 2025, the Florida Department of Health recorded more than 275 cases of travel-linked chikungunya.
Zika is spread both by mosquitoes and close human contact. Although most Zika infections result in mild symptoms such as fever, rashes, joint and muscle pain, they can also lead to serious complications, including the autoimmune illness Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults and birth defects in babies.
A major Zika outbreak in 2015 and 2016 affected Brazil and other countries across the Americas, causing thousands of children to be born with brain damage. Florida had many cases, with Zika virus infections diagnosed in more than 1,000 people, according to state health records. Zika exposure likely led to more than 300 cases of birth defects among infants in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both Zika and chikungunya are spread by mosquitoes found in many parts of the world, often as invasive species, raising the risk of regional or global outbreaks.
The Wertheim UF Scripps team brings deep experience in drug discovery and development to these collaborations. Significant progress has already been made, said Bannister, a member of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute and The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute’s Moonshot New Medicine Initiative.
The team recently developed compounds that disable the Zika virus’s ability to replicate in infected cells. According to their April study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, their Zika compounds could potentially treat other, related viruses spread by mosquitoes. The paper was co-authored by Bannister and members of the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery Center, a sunsetted NIH program focused on identifying new medicines for diseases with pandemic potential.
“Our findings suggest that these compounds target a universal weakness across the entire flavivirus family, including dengue and yellow fever, making it an attractive target for developing broad-spectrum antiviral treatments,” said Bannister, the study’s corresponding author.
He said the Zika grant will accelerate the team’s research into potential new antiviral medicines. The other team members include virologists Dahai Luo, Ph.D., of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and Donghoon Chung, Ph.D., of the University of Louisville.
“These viruses pose a significant public health threat, and one that seems to be growing,” Bannister said. “By bringing together virologists and chemists across institutions and continents, the team is positioned to develop urgently needed therapeutics for viral pathogens of global concern.”