KU researchers, artists working on apps to ID disease-carrying insects

Disease-spreading bugs?

There might soon be an app for that, if researchers at the University of Kansas have their way.

Scientists, programmers, public health officials and artists are developing mobile phone applications for automatic and wide-spread identification of disease-carrying insects, KU said in a statement.

This could help attack diseases like Chagas, spread by some species of “kissing bugs.” Chagas has infected 8 million people in rural Central and South America and 300,000 in the U.S., the KU statement said.

And it makes sense that phone cameras could give public health officials a useful tool to identify and suppress infestations.

But it won’t be easy, the KU statement said. Only some species of triatomine (kissing) bugs spread the disease, so health officials need accurate, precise photo identification of specific species.

They’ve tried developing this suppress tactic before, and it didn’t work.

So now, researchers – including artists from KU’s Spencer Museum of Art – are helping to create tiny bug photo studios to take precise photography. Other researchers are helping to create computer applications to automatically identify species of bugs, the KU statement said.

This story was originally published September 24, 2014 at 10:23 AM with the headline "KU researchers, artists working on apps to ID disease-carrying insects."