Monica Asman, 1920

Troyo, Adriana, González-Sequeira, María Paula, Aguirre-Salazar, Mónica, Cambronero-Ortíz, Ian, Chaves-González, Luis Enrique, Mejías-Alpízar, María José, Alvarado-Molina, Kendall, Calderón-Arguedas, Ólger & Rojas-Araya, Diana, 2022, Acknowledging extraordinary women in the history of medical entomology, Parasites & Vectors (114) 15 (1), pp. 1-27 : 12-13

Sister Monica Asman

Monica Asman was born in Germany in 1920, but moved to Los Angeles, USA, with her family when she was a child [ 258]. She became a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in 1940, and from 1944 to 1962 she was a teacher at different schools staffed by the Franciscan Order [ 258, 259]. In 1966, she received a Ph.D. in mosquito genetics from the University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN, USA), which focused on chromosomal translocations of Aedes aegypti [ 260]. Of note, she was one of only eight women among 52 men who received this type of degree from that institution that year [ 259]. Tat same year (1966) she started working as an instructor in the Biology Department at Santa Clara University, where she remained until 1971; in 1968 she also joined the faculty of the University of California Berkeley as an Associate Research Entomologist, where she worked for almost 20 years [ 258 – 260]. After retiring from Berkeley, she opened a center for poor people in Redwood City, California [ 258].

As an expert in mosquito genetics, Dr. Asman produced more than 50 publications in several journals [ 259]. While working at Berkeley, she did research on Culex tarsalis , which plays a major role as a vector of St. Louis encephalitis and equine encephalomyelitis in the western USA. Her investigations focused on using chromosomal modifications as a tool for population control by introducing infertility in mosquito field populations (sterile male release method) or by making them less capable of transmitting disease [ 260 – 263]. Dr. Asman and collaborators irradiated male Cx. tarsalis with cobalt-60 to induce genetic alterations and determined the ideal radiation dose that induced approximately 95% mosquito sterility [ 262, 264]. Irradiated male mosquitoes were shown to be competitive when compared to nonirradiated males from both field and laboratory populations, determined by measuring the number of egg rafts produced by females exposed to both types of males [ 264]. She also participated in field releases of genetically altered (carrying sex-linked double heterozygous translocations) and radiosterilized Cx. tarsalis males, as well as studies on the mating ability of the latter mosquitoes in outdoor cages [ 265 – 267].

Other relevant contributions were the experiments carried out by Dr. Asman to determine the effects of ionizing radiation on the gonadal development of Aedes aegypti in different life-stages and studies on the genetics of Aedes sierrensis , as this species was also a candidate for the sterile male control method [ 268].

Dr. Monica Asman passed away in California in 2016 [ 259].