About

Professor Omar S. Akbari earned his B.S./M.S. in Biotechnology in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2008 from the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He completed his postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering (BBE). He began his independent academic career at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) in 2015 and joined the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2017. At UCSD, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2019, Professor in 2021, and was nominated as Tata Chancellor’s Endowed Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in 2025. Dr. Akbari is a bioengineering innovator with over 20 patents and is a co-founder of several companies including Agragene (2018), Synvect (2022), and Cloak Biotech (2025). These companies focus on translating genetic engineering technologies into scalable solutions for sustainable pest control, vector suppression, and engineered living therapeutics. In 2026, he was elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in recognition of his sustained contributions to genetic engineering innovation and commercialization.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Computational biology
• Ecology
• Sociology
• Telecommunications
• Immunology
• Neuroscience
• Mathematics
• Medicine
• Virology
• Evolutionary biology
• Engineering
• Biotechnology
• Risk analysis (engineering)

Selected publications

• The olfactory neurobiology and chemical ecology of mosquito attraction to plant nutrient sources

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-10-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Invasive mosquito species are key vectors of arboviral diseases, like dengue, zika and chikungunya, posing significant public health challenges worldwide. These issues are worsened by urbanization, climate change and insecticide resistance, driving research into new control methods. Adult mosquitoes are attracted to plant nutrient sources essential for flight and reproduction. However, few studies have examined the odours emitted by these sources, and little is known about the olfactory neurobiology of mosquito-plant interactions. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the broad classes of volatile compounds that modulate mosquito behaviour, focusing on the olfactory processes underlying mosquito responses to plant nutrient sources. We also discuss the application of neurogenetic tools for investigating the role of olfactory receptor genes and neural circuits in mosquito ecology. Finally, we explore how insights from these studies can inform and enhance mosquito control strategies, including developing synthetic lures for attractive toxic sugar baits and improved trapping and surveillance technologies. Defining the olfactory receptors, sensory neurons and neural circuits mediating attraction or repellency to plant odours is crucial for optimizing mosquito monitoring and control interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Toward comfortable mosquito-proof clothing: repellent- and insecticide-free fabrics that block bites across three disease-transmitting mosquito genera

  Journal of Medical Entomology · 2025-10-27

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Mosquito-borne disease and nuisance biting from mosquitoes have severe health and economic consequences. Conventional fabrics are typically not effective at providing protection against mosquito bites, and fabrics treated with repellents and/or insecticides are limited by rising insecticide resistance, risk of significant dermatologic and neurologic side effects, and decreased efficacy with washing and time. The goal of this study was to identify commercially available, repellent/insecticide-free, comfortable fabrics that block bites from three genera of mosquitoes that are known to transmit dangerous infectious diseases with widespread distribution: Aedes, Anopheles, and Culex. To do this, we evaluated fabrics from Ripstop By the Roll LLC in a step-wise series of mouse blood-feeding and behavioral bioassays. Out of 88 fabrics, 53 were found to be blood-feed-proof. These fabrics were more likely to have a higher areal weight density (AWD) and a polyurethane coating than blood-feed-susceptible fabrics. Of the six most comfortable fabrics by subjective hand-feel testing, five were definitively bite-proof during behavioral bioassays. These five fabrics varied substantially in AWD, thickness, finish/coating, and fiber pattern. None of them had a polyurethane coating. Three of them were breathable, making them appropriate for active-wear clothing. Overall, the bite-proof fabrics identified in this study have the potential to significantly reduce mosquito biting and the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Estimated cost and operational structure of pgSIT malaria vector control programs in selected West African countries

  Scientific African · 2025-08-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Malaria control has primarily been achieved through vector control, but current methods are insufficient to achieve elimination. Precision guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) is a mosquito suppression technique that generates sterile male mosquitoes for mass release. Our previous studies showed that this intervention is expected to be highly cost-effective in a malaria endemic region of West Africa, but these estimates used only 15-31% capacity for sex sorting, which is the limiting production step and a primary cost. We, therefore, determined the most cost efficient facility size by calculating the cost per million Anopheles gambiae suppressed as the facility was scaled up to suppress more mosquitoes. We developed an optimized facility size per 9.2 million mosquitoes suppressed, which can be a framework for scaling and increases the cost effectiveness of this intervention. The development of this intervention can potentially interrupt malaria transmission, strengthen local public health institutions, create manufacturing capacity, provide local jobs, and enhance regional health security capabilities that are more resilient to disruptions in supply chains and malaria investment.

  PublisherDOI

• A self-limiting sterile insect technique alternative for Ceratitis capitata

  BMC Biology · 2025-04-12 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Genetic biocontrol systems have broad applications in population control of insects implicated in both disease spread and food security. Ceratitis capitata (the Mediterranean fruit fly), a major agricultural pest with a global distribution, is one of the appealing targets for such genetic control. RESULTS: In this study, we establish and characterise a novel split-CRISPR/Cas9 system we term Sex Conversion Induced by CRISPR (SCIC) in C. capitata. Using the white eye gene for toolkit selection we achieved up to 100% CRISPR/Cas9 efficiency, displaying the feasibility of C. capitata split-CRISPR/Cas9 systems using constitutive promoters. We then induce sex conversion by targeting the transformer gene in a SCIC approach aimed for SIT-mediated releases upon radiation-based sterilisation. Knock-out of transformer induced partial to full female-to-male sex conversion, with the remaining individuals all being intersex and sterile. SCIC population modelling shows a strong potential to outcompete traditional SIT, allowing for faster population elimination with fewer released sterile males. CONCLUSION: Overall, we construct an appropriate CRISPR/Cas9 toolkit for the use in C capitata. Our results build the foundation for further genetic pest control methods in the species and related tephritid agricultural pests.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evaluating the cost of malaria elimination by Anopheles gambiae precision guided SIT in the Upper River region, The Gambia

  PLOS Global Public Health · 2025-07-18 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Mosquito control has successfully reduced the burden of malaria globally, but current vector control technologies cannot achieve malaria elimination. Precision guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) is one of the most promising interventions being developed for malaria elimination. Mass release of genetically sterile males can act as a chemical-free species-specific insecticide. Before translating pgSIT from the bench to the field, however, it is essential to understand the potential costs and capabilities of this technology in a malaria-endemic region to determine if further investment into research and development of this technology is worthwhile. Therefore, we estimated the health outcomes and costs of a pgSIT program working jointly with current interventions to control the Anopheles gambiae malaria vector in the Upper River region of The Gambia. The pgSIT intervention in this region is predicted to prevent approximately 230 deaths and about 48,000 sick days per year. We have provided a range of costs that include risks associated with research and development, the facility, mass rearing efficiency, and distribution. This intervention should save disability-adjusted life years (DALY) at 11-94 USD per year and will prevent cases at 10-86 USD per infection. These estimates predict that pgSIT will cost 0.36-3.03 USD per person in the treated region annually. The cost per DALY shows life-saving at a cost comparable to current interventions in the Upper River region.

  PublisherDOI

• Engineering gene drive docking sites in a haplolethal locus in <i>Anopheles gambiae</i>

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-03-03 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  ABSTRACT Gene drives are selfish genetic elements which promise to be powerful tools in the fight against vector-borne diseases such as malaria. We previously proposed population replacement gene drives designed to better withstand the evolution of resistance by homing through haplolethal loci. Because most mutations in the wild-type allele that would otherwise confer resistance are lethal, only successful drive homing permits the cell to survive. Here we outline the development and characterization of two ΦC31-Recombination mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) gene drive docking lines with these features in Anopheles gambiae , a first step towards construction of robust gene drives in this important malaria vector. We outline adaption of the technique HACK (Homology Assisted CRISPR knockin) to knock-in two docking site sequences into a paired haplolethal-haplosufficient (Ribosome-Proteasome) locus, and confirm that these docking lines permit insertion of drive-relevant transgenes. We report the first anopheline proteasome knockouts, and identify ribosome mutants that reveal a major hurdle that such designs must overcome to develop robust drives in the future. Although we do not achieve drive, this work provides a new tool for constructing future evolution-robust drive systems and reveals critical challenges that must be overcome for future development of gene drives designed to target haplolethal loci in anophelines and, potentially, other metazoans.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Author response for "The olfactory neurobiology and chemical ecology of mosquito attraction to plant nutrient sources"

  2025-08-28

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Morphological specializations of mosquito CO ₂ -sensing olfactory receptor neurons

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-10-23 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Hematophagous mosquitoes use CO 2 as a key arousal signal that gates behavioral responses to host-derived cues. In Aedes aegypti , CO 2 is detected by olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) housed in the sensory hairs (sensilla) on the maxillary palp. While the molecular mechanism and behavioral significance of CO 2 sensing have been well studied in mosquitoes, the nanoscale three-dimensional structures of their CO 2 -sensing ORNs and associated cells have remained unclear. Using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy, we characterize the CO 2 -sensing cpA neuron and its odor-sensitive neighbors, cpB and cpC, within the capitate sensilla of A. aegypti. Notably, cpA neurons are significantly larger, with an outer dendritic surface area 8 to 12 times greater than that of cpB and cpC neurons. This expanded CO 2 -sensing surface arises from its unique architecture, consisting of numerous flattened dendritic sheets folded into intricate lamellae. In contrast, cpB and cpC dendrites exhibit sparse, narrow cylindrical branches. Moreover, the cpA axon displays a prominent pearls-on-a-string morphology, with numerous mitochondria-rich, nonsynaptic varicosities connected by thin cables. Remarkably, a glial cell and an auxiliary cell together ensheathe the cpA soma but not cpB or cpC, suggesting a specialized role in supporting cpA function. Compared to Drosophila CO 2 -sensitive ORNs, a larger portion of the cpA outer dendrite is embedded within the sensillum cuticle, potentially improving access to environmental CO 2 . These findings reveal key morphological specializations of cpA neurons, thereby advancing our understanding of mosquito sensory biology and laying the groundwork for future studies on the molecular basis and functional ramifications of these anatomical adaptations.

  PublisherDOI

• Synthetic Type III-E CRISPR-Cas Effectors for Programmable RNA-targeting

  Journal of Molecular Biology · 2025-11-27

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• CTRL Enables Gene-Specific RNA Regulation Using CRISPR-Cas7–11

  ACS Synthetic Biology · 2025-11-07

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Advancements in synthetic biology have enabled the development of precision gene expression technologies for comprehensive investigations of biological and biochemical networks. Here, we describe the development of a refined and innovative tool, CRISPR-Cas Transgenic Repressible eLement (CTRL), which utilizes the direct repeat processing activity of the recently discovered CRISPR-Cas7-11 effector to site-specifically target synthetic mRNA molecules. We demonstrate that CTRL exhibits high efficiency, tunable regulation of expression, and gene-specific repression of mRNA and protein expression. We engineered multiple permutations of the Cas7-11 effector that differ in their ability to reduce gene expression, suggesting flexibility for the application of choice. CTRL is a novel variation on gene repression technology that exhibits broad applicability across multiple model systems.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Development of synthetic viral circuitry to regulate viruses in mosquito disease vectors

  NIH · $2.4M · 2019–2024

• Developing reciprocal chromosomal translocations for wild population replacement in an important vector of human disease.

  NIH · $427k · 2016–2019

• The olfactory basis of locating nectar sugar sources in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

  NIH · $3.3M · 2021–2027

• Precision guided SIT for the control of vector-borne disease

  NIH · $2.3M · 2020–2024

• Synthetically engineering population control systems in vectors of human disease

  NIH · $221k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• John M. Marshall

  Innovative Genomics Institute

  112 shared

• Ming Li

  University of California, San Diego

  95 shared

• Ting Yang

  Chongqing Medical University

  92 shared

• Igor Antoshechkin

  California Institute of Technology

  90 shared

• Elena Dalla Benetta

  University of California, San Diego

  74 shared

• Daniel J. Brogan

  63 shared

• Nikolay P. Kandul

  University of California, San Diego

  61 shared

• Michelle Bui

  University of California, San Diego

  56 shared

Labs

• THE AKBARI LABPI

  Genetic engineering innovation and commercialization

Education

• Senior Postdoctoral Scholar, Biological Engineering

  Caltech

  2015

• Ph.D., Cell and Molecular Biology

  University of Nevada Reno

  2008

• B.S./M.S., Biotechnology

  University of Nevada Reno

  2005