New research published on July 31, 2025, in Parasites & Vectors found that the same drug, nitisinone, can even kill mosquitoes that simply land on a surface sprayed with the chemical. Whether people will willingly offer their bodies as mosquito blood bait, though, remains less clear. The bottlebrush plant, a species endemic to Australia, is the natural source of the toxin used to make the drug nitisinone. In other words, the drug takes mosquitoes’ ability to convert protein from human blood—and turns it against them. “Working with a drug like nitisinone, and its versatility, bodes well for creating new products to combat mosquitoes,” Haines said.