Manhattan ? Kansas State University researchers are using a $1.5 million grant to swat down mosquitoes.

Assistant biology professor Kristin Michel wants to find a way to make the pests susceptible to the very diseases they transmit.

Michel is the principal investigator on the four-year study.

She says current insecticides target an insect’s nervous system. She says the approach her team is studying relates to a mosquito’s immunity.

The grant comes from the National Institutes of Health.