2024 AMCA MEMORIAL LECTURE HONOREE: MIR SUBHAN MULLA 1925–2023¹

Mir Subhan Mulla, a family man, professor, mentor, scientist, community leader, friend, and colleague (Fig. 1), passed away peacefully at his home in Riverside, California, on January 29, 2023, at age 97. He was laid to rest on February 4, 2023, at Crestlawn Memorial Park in Riverside. Mulla was preceded in death by Lelia Mulla, his wife of 64 years; he is survived by 4 children (David, Shireen, Dean, and Janet), 5 grandchildren, 3 greatgrandchildren, and many brothers and sisters. Mulla was born on February 15, 1925, in the village of Zangawat, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, to a family of 12 brothers and 4 sisters. Mulla received a scholarship from the Afghan government in 1948 to attend Cornell University, where he obtained his undergraduate degree in entomology and parasitology. During his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, he met Lelia Patterson at the International House. They married in August 1954. Mulla received his Ph.D. in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1956 and joined the faculty of the University of California, Riverside, the same year. He retired in 2006 after fulfilling 50 years of service in the UC system, during which he served as the head of the Division of Economic Entomology from 1979 to 1983 (Fig. 2). He retired, but never expired, and stayed inspired for the rest of his life.

Mulla lived in a highly achieving and rewarding life by engaging in teaching and research, as well as helping his students, colleagues as well as family members to immigrate to the USA. I met Mulla when he was 70, and I lost him after 10,103 days. In this paper, my best efforts are made to reflect on Mulla’s life from my personal view, instead of an exhaustive review of all that had happened in his life.

As one of the founding faculty at the Department of Entomology, UC Riverside, Mulla created an undergraduate-graduate course and graduate seminars in medical and veterinary entomology that was taught jointly with Louis Riehl. As a teacher, Mulla possessed an almost unmatched scope and magnitude of knowledge and experience in the subject matter he shared with students and scholars. Although the name medical and veterinary entomology literally means studies on insects and other arthropods that affect the well-being and health of humans and animals, this discipline is interwoven with general entomology, microbiology, parasitology, zoology, infectious diseases, and environmental science. Mulla’s classes were interdisciplinary; they connected many subjects and were taught in an artistic manner that was unduplicable.

As a leader of the world-renowned UC Riverside medical entomology graduate program that focused primarily on biology and control of mosquitoes, blackflies, biting and nonbiting midges, muscoid flies, and house dust mites, he advised 27 Ph.D. students, 3 master’s students, 20 postdoctoral fellows, and more than 30 visiting scientists from many countries during his career (Fig. 3). Those who studied under Mulla’s mentorship now serve in key positions in academia, industry, the military, and government, both domestically and internationally, where they continue the mission of integrated management of disease vectors and pests through sustainable interventions. From Mulla’s mentorship, the students learned not only knowledge and skills, but also “how to learn” and how to generate sustainable research ideas for a successful career. The research projects developed by Mulla’s students and postdoctoral and visiting scholars filled many critical gaps and led to significant industrial innovations, which still benefit integrated vector and pest management today and will continue for many years to come.

Mulla contributed significantly to research and development in biology, ecology, and control of arthropods of public health, veterinary, and urban importance (Awad and Mulla 1984; Mulla 1985, 1990, 1994; Mulla et al. 1987; Mulla and Mian 1991), including, but not limited to, mosquitoes, flies, eye gnats, midges, and blackflies, using biorational pesticides (microbials, insect growth regulators [IGRs], botanicals, and others; Fig. 4). In his 50-year career, more than 550 scientific papers were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The highlights are summarized as follows.

Nuisance eye gnats in the Coachella Valley of California have been notorious for ages because of the warm weather, friable soils, irrigated fields, and tillage farming practices. Unsurprisingly, these gnats, commonly known as “face gnats,” can be a severe nuisance because of their habit of hovering around people’s faces. Local annoyed residents cope with the pest by doing the “Indio wave,” a hand motion to chase the gnats away, which is mistakenly perceived as “hello and welcome” to visitors. During the worst times, businesses and schools were forced to close their operations because of the nuisance and risk of bacterial conjunctivitis, often called “pink eye,” which was transmitted by eye gnats. Mulla and his colleagues faced these serious challenges in the late 1950s and collaborated with local residents, government, and vector control agencies to tackle this persistent problem (Fig. 5). Mulla’s laboratory initiated the colonies for the common pestiferous species Hippelates collusor (Townsend) (Mulla and Barnes 1957) and conducted systematic research on biology and ecology (Mulla and March 1959; Mulla 1962a, 1964, 1966), putrefied protein-based attractants, their bioactive ingredients (AIs), olfactory properties, and field applications (Hwang and Mulla 1976; Mulla and Axelrod 1977; Mulla et al. 1960b, 1990a). Ensuing studies addressed trap designs, trapping evaluation, and trapping out (removal) operations. Additionally, Mulla worked with local farmers, property owners, and contractors to alter their agricultural practices for source reduction to suppress the eye gnat populations (Mulla 1963). Conventional and biorational pesticides were attempted for soil treatment to effectively reduce immature populations (Mulla 1960a, 1960b, 1961, 1962b; Mulla et al. 1960a; Georghiou and Mulla 1961; Jiang and Mulla 2006). Local eye gnat populations were significantly reduced to tolerable levels, and the management practices are still in use today in the Coachella Valley and elsewhere.

Decades of research and development in Mulla’s laboratory has reshaped mosquito control from conventional to biorational approaches by realizing the impact of long-term pesticide application on atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere (Mulla et al. 1981, Mulla and Mian 1981, Mian and Mulla 1992). Mulla’s most significant accomplishments were evaluations of various techniques and tools including organochlorines (e.g., methoxychlor), organophosphates (e.g., malathion), carbamates (e.g., carbaryl), microbial larvicides, and IGRs, including juvenile hormone analogs (JHAs e.g., methoprene) and chitin synthesis inhibitors (CSIs e.g., diflubenzuron) for their activity, efficacy, and nontarget safety when used in mosquito control (Mulla 1994). To transit from conventional and biorational pesticides, Mulla’s laboratory began evaluation of biopesticides, particularly the naturally occurring entomopathogenic bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis de Barjac (Bti) and Bacillus sphaericus (Myer and Neide) (Bsph) (Mulla 1985). Following the earlier discovery and preliminary determination of the larvicidal activity of Bti and Bsph, the systematic research by Mulla’s group turned earlier laboratory tests to industrial manufacturing—from cylinders and beakers to real-world mosquito breeding grounds that were associated with crop fields, vineyards, pastures, date gardens, rice fields, dairy wastewater lagoons, riverbeds, and urban storm drains. During this process, numerous prototype products were screened and evaluated under laboratory, microcosm, mesocosm, and real field conditions (Mulla et al. 1982a, 1982b, 1984a, 1984b, 1990c, 1997, 1999, 2001; Mian and Mulla 1983a, 1983b; Lacey and Mulla 1990; Su and Mulla 1999a). The products tested were tailor-made for different mosquito species, various habitats, and application tools, including but not limited to, aqueous suspension, capsule suspension, granules, water dispersible granules, water soluble pouches, pellets, and briquets. These formulations play a crucial role in integrated mosquito management today to combat vector and nuisance species (Mulla 1985, 1990), among which is the well-established decades-long field program to control Aedes vexans (Meigen) in the upper Rhine Valley, Germany.

Along with the research and development on microbial larvicides, Mulla also put efforts into IGRs such as JHAs and CSIs (Mulla and Darwazeh 1975, 1976, 1979; Ali and Mulla 1978; Mian and Mulla 1982a; Mulla et al. 1985, 1986, 1989). As early as 1974, he and his colleagues published the evaluation procedures on activity and efficacy for IGRs (Mulla et al. 1974), which have been adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and many research laboratories worldwide. Examples of the IGRs that Mulla’s laboratory worked on included JHA-methoprene, pyriproxyfen, fenoxycarb and CSI-diflubenzuron, novaluron, and others. After methoprene and its sibling compounds hydroprene and kinoprene became available in the late 1960s, Mulla launched a full-range evaluation of the activity and efficacy of these compounds in controlling mosquitoes, stored product pests, and urban arthropod pests. His research achievements have benefited the switching of racemic methoprene to S-methoprene for efficacy enhancement. Fenoxycarb, a non-neurotoxic carbamate, shows a high juvenile hormone activity, but it also has other nonjuvenile hormone specific effects (Mulla et al. 1985, 1986). While S-methoprene was found to have limitations in habitats with high organic contents such as dairy wastewater lagoons, diflubenzuron and others appeared to be great candidates for breeding sites as such and alike (Mulla et al. 1975b, Mulla and Darwazeh 1988). Mulla’s team was the first group that evaluated the relatively new CSI novaluron in the USA, a collaborative effort with the WHO Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) (Mulla et al. 2003a, Su et al. 2003, Tawatsin et al. 2007). After decades of laboratory and field studies, Mulla concluded and reemphasized the benefits of IGRs for vector control (Mulla 1991, 1995), which have been evidenced by the increasing applications of these products nowadays. Extensive laboratory and field evaluations conducted in various habitats by Mulla’s laboratory and others have led to the registration and commercialization of the products we heavily rely on today in mosquito control operations.

Another biorational approach by Mulla’s laboratory was to explore the larvicidal activity and efficacy of algal species that share habitats with mosquito larvae (Dhillon and Mulla 1981, 1982; Dhillon et al. 1982; Mian and Mulla 1986a). For example, laboratory-cultured and field-collected green alga Chlorella ellipsoidea Gerneck exhibited noticeable larvicidal activity against Cx. quinquefasiatus Say. Various extracts from Rhizoclonium hieroglyphicum Kütz and C. ellipsoidea caused significant species- and instar-dependent larval mortality under laboratory conditions. Chlorella ellipsoidea caused operationally meaningful reduction in the populations of mosquitoes breeding in cemetery flower vases (Dhillon and Mulla 1981, 1982; Dhillon et al. 1982). These discoveries could pave the way for the development of naturally occurring algae as an intervention tool against larval mosquitoes.

Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a parasitic disease caused by the filarial nematode Onchocerca volvulus Leuckart transmitted by Simulium spp. blackflies. These blackflies breed along fast-flowing rivers and streams. In total, 30 countries in Africa are infested, ranging from Senegal across to Ethiopia in the north and as far south as Angola and Malawi. Vector control, i.e., targeting the larval stages of the blackflies dwelling in the rivers and streams, is the most effective intervention to reduce the disease burden of onchocerciasis. However, the choices of pesticides applied to the water that human populations depend on for daily consumption and agriculture are very limited. Conventional pesticides such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) were used for blackfly control, which resulted in resistance and nontarget safety issues after repeated treatments. Mulla’s earlier research showed that Bti was also highly effective against blackflies (Lacey and Mulla 1977a, 1977b; Lacey et al. 1978; Mohsen and Mulla 1981). Between 1974 and 2002, onchocerciasis was brought under control in West Africa through the work of the Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP), mainly by the spraying of insecticides such as Bti against blackfly larvae.

Mulla’s laboratory was always on the lookout for pesticide resistance in mosquito control. One of the most significant contributions was resistance management of microbial larvicides based on Bti and Bsph that brought the potential and promise to shift mosquito larval control from conventional pesticides to biopesticides. However, because of intrinsic reasons such as simplicity in the toxin profile in Bsph and natural exposure to diverse natural strains of this bacterium, resistance risk in mosquito populations to this microbial larvicide has been a concern since first triggered by a report on Culex pipiens L. in southern France. Mulla’s laboratory was one of the very few pioneers that initiated serial studies on resistance and cross-resistance risk, mechanism, and biological consequences (Rodcharoen and Mulla 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997). The critical findings included that the significant resistance in Cx. quinquefasciatus did occur in response to repeated exposures, cross resistance also occurred to other strains of Bsph but not to Bti, there were biological fitness consequences associated with resistance development, and behavioral avoidance was one of the mechanisms in the resistance evolution process. Most importantly, the practical tactics for resistance management, including resistance prevention before its occurrence and susceptibility restoration after the fact, were also developed accordingly (Zahiri et al. 2002, Mulla et al. 2003b, Zahiri and Mulla 2003, Su and Mulla 2004). Briefly, compared with the selection by Bsph alone, the mixture of Bti and Bsph negated development of resistance to Bsph, while the rotation of both surprisingly accelerated this process. After resistance occurred, switching to Bti alone, a mixture of Bti and Bsph, or rotation of both significantly restored the susceptibility, and hence reversed the resistance to Bsph. These discoveries were later built into the product designs by industry.

Mulla was also a naturalist who loved to explore phytochemicals for vector and pest control. He even said that a single leaf functions as a chemical plant to purposely produce many phytochemicals, among which some are meaningful for pest control as repellent, attractant, synergist, or direct lethal agent. It was believed that neem-based botanicals are highly ranked after the successful development of pyrethrum. Mulla’s laboratory pioneered the serial research on neem oil and one of its primary active ingredients, azadirachtin, against mosquitoes by multiple actions, including oviciding, antifeeding, larviciding, and adulticiding (Su and Mulla 1998a, 1998b, 1999b, 1999c; Mulla and Su 1999, 2002). While further research is still underway, some commercial neem-based products have become available and have been integrated to sustainable urban pest and vector control operations in the USA and elsewhere.

Another belief and practice from Mulla’s career is that nature must have a solution to problems in nature. He inspired his team to explore the vector population regulation forces in nature such as predators, and develop and apply them as a tool in control operations. One significant example of developing predatory mosquito control agent was studies on tadpole shrimp, a freshwater crustacean that thrives in ephemeral habitats in arid regions. This organism is considered a living fossil in conservancy and evolutionary biology. One species, Triops longicaudatus (Le Conte) later revised to T. newberyii (Packard) (Notostraca: Triopsidae), commonly known as the desert tadpole shrimp, is prevalent in the southwestern USA, particularly in the vernal pools, and agriculture fields with flood irrigation and dry cycles. To combat the floodwater mosquito Psorophora spp. that are also associated with ephemeral habitats, Mulla’s laboratory initiated full-range studies of tadpole shrimp in the Coachella Valley, including its fundamental biology, distribution, seasonality, association with agricultural practices, egg hatch ecology, and ultimately its introduction and application to control immature mosquitoes (Tietze and Mulla 1989, 1990, 1991; Fry et al. 1994; Su and Mulla 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2005; Su et al. 2014). Biocontrol of mosquitoes by Mulla’s laboratory also extended to a predatory copepod as well as indigenous and introduced but locally established fish. For example, field studies were conducted on the survival potential of copepod Mesocyclops leuckarti pilosa Keiffer, desert pupfsh Cyprinodon macularius Baird and Girard, and the guppy Poecilia reticulata Peters against mosquitoes in secondary sewage effluents with floating water hyacinth plants (Mian and Mulla 1986b). Procedures for colonization and field application of these predatory organisms were developed and adopted later by local mosquito and vector control agencies.

Nonbiting midges belong to the order Diptera and family Chironomidae; many nuisance species are associated with human dwellings and settings. These insects can be a severe nuisance and even cause allergies in susceptible individuals, although they do not bite or take blood meals as other nematoceran species do. Midge control is particularly challenging because (1) larval stages in massive numbers are the root of the problem as the adults are short lived, (2) choices of pesticides to control larval stages are very limited because of the vulnerable aquatic environment, and (3) midge larvae dwell in benthic environments and stay inside the self-built tubes, which compromise their pesticide exposure. In response to the requests of residents, governments, and businesses, Mulla’s laboratory conducted serial studies in many habitats such as residential and recreational lakes, retention and detention basins, flood control channels, and water treatment facilities (Fig. 6). Proper sampling tools and methodologies to evaluate larval and adult populations were developed, including scraping-netting samplers, bottom dredging, emergence cone traps, light traps, and resting traps. Also included were evaluations of conventional pesticides with low environmental and nontarget impact, as well as biorational approaches, such as Bti and others (Mulla and Khasawinah 1969; Mulla et al. 1971, 1974, 1976, 1990b; Mulla 1974; Ali and Mulla 1977, 1978, 1979; Boardman 1977; Ali et al. 1978; Johnson and Mulla 1981; Rodcharoen et al. 1991; Lothrop and Mulla 1998).

Numerous species of Coleopteran beetles are pestiferous to stored products such as grains, tobaccos, tea leaves, and other valuable commodities. Two JHAs, methoprene and MV678, and two urea-type chitin-synthesis inhibitors, diflubenzuron and Bay Sir 8513, were tested against the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), the saw-toothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.), the lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica (F.), and the rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae (L.). Their biological activities and residual efficacy were documented in protecting the common stored products—wheat, barley, and corn (Mian and Mulla 1982b, 1982c, 1983c, 1983d; Mian et al. 1990). These studies are considered ones among the earlier attempts that helped the subsequent product registration, commercialization, and operational uses in stored grain protection.

Mulla’s laboratory initiated a collaborative project on house dust mites in 1970s with a scientist from Colombia. The studies documented house dust species in the genera Dermatophagoides and Euroglyphus, their distribution, abundance, and seasonality, as well as control measures against the pestiferous species such as D. pteronyssinus (Trouessart), D. farinae Hughes, and D. evansi Fain, Hughes and Johnson (Mulla et al. 1975a; Charlet et al. 1977; Lang and Mulla 1977, 1978).

One of the challenges in pesticide field efficacy evaluation is to validate comparisons of vector counts in untreated control and treatment, which requires that the pretreatment counts between randomly designated untreated control and treatment not be significantly different. However, under natural conditions, high variability in vector density is quite common, which often leads to significant differences in pretreatment counts, thus making the validation of posttreatment differences questionable. In Mulla et al. (1971), a formula was described for efficacy calculation by comprehensively considering vector counts pre- and posttreatment as well as untreated control and treatment. This formula known as Mulla’s formula was used in many publications. Briefly, Mulla’s formula is described as “Reduction (%) = 100 – [(C1/T1) × (T2/C2)],” where “1” and “2” refer to vector counts pre- and posttreatment, and “C” and “T” represent untreated control and treatment, respectively. The advantages of this formula are (1) simplicity in calculation does not need sophisticated software, (2) reliable population reductions are calculated regardless of pretreatment density variabilities, and (3) results are easily interpreted and applied in vector control product evaluation and control operations. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) uses 90% reduction as acceptable efficacy in product registration. Most of the vector control agencies accept 85–90% reduction in their field operations. Mulla’s formula has been cited in many publications since 1971 (Reisen 2010), adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO 2005), and even expanded its uses to other vectors and pests.

In the scientific community, Mulla served as a consultant, advisor, member, or chairman of committees of numerous national and international organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WHO of the United Nations. Lending his in-depth knowledge of vector biology and control, he provided crucial advice for controlling important mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, filariasis, and various strains of viral encephalitis. As a leading scientist in biopesticide development, Mulla initiated and chaired the International Congress of Biopesticides (ICOB) for many years. Additionally, he guided Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), University of Tehran (Iran), Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Léon (Mexico), University of the Punjab (Pakistan), and Government College University (Pakistan) in establishing their graduate programs in medical entomology. As one of the key founding members, he helped establish the Society for Vector Ecology (SOVE) in 1968 in California. Since then, SOVE has grown to become a world-renowned professional organization with worldwide membership, including extension and operational personnel who present an array of diverse research. Regional branches in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and India have been established in the past few decades. In addition to his decades of outstanding services to SOVE, Mulla supported student attendance at conferences and recently donated $50,000 to establish the Dr. Mir S. Mulla Memorial Lecture Fund (Fig. 7).

Mulla and his wife, Lelia, have also established two scholarship funds and funded an endowed faculty chair at UC Riverside. The “Dr. Mir S. Mulla & Leila Mulla Endowed Scholarship Fund” provides merit scholarships annually to undergraduate and/or graduate students in the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) majoring in entomology or the bioagricultural or biomedical sciences at UC Riverside. The “Dr. Mir Subhan Mulla and Lelia L. Mulla Graduate Fellowship for International Students” currently supports an international graduate student from Afghanistan pursuing her Ph.D. in the CNAS. Mulla and Lelia also funded “the Mir S. Mulla Endowed Term Chair in Entomology.” The endowed chair faculty position is currently held by the esteemed scholar Alexander S. Raikhel, whose research focuses on elucidating molecular aspects of female mosquito reproduction using state-of-the-art techniques of gene manipulation, such as genomic transformation and CRISPR-Cas9. Raikhel’s prolific work includes mentoring more than 75 graduate students and postdocs with support from NIH grants, supervising 4 current postdoctoral fellows, and teaching “Genomics of Insect Vectors of Human Disease.” The important work of teaching the next generation about diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and other vector borne diseases continues.

In the nonscientific community, Mulla served as a leader in the Riverside Muslim community. He and his wife Lelia founded the Islamic Society of Riverside and Orange Counties and played a key role in building the Islamic Center of Riverside, the first mosque in the Inland Empire of southern California. His philanthropic work included supporting the local Muslim community and donating land to Riverside County Parks and Recreation to preserve public access to Sugarloaf Mountain. Community involvement continued beyond Mula’s retirement in 2006 (Fig. 8).

In recognition of Mulla’s excellence in teaching, mentorship, and research, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA); Mulla was awarded the Distinguished Service Award (1986), the Distinguished Achievement Award (2006), and the Lifetime Achievement Award (2009) by SOVE (Fig. 7). The 48th SOVE annual meeting held in Yosemite, California, in 2018 was dedicated to Mir Mulla. The Indian chapter of SOVE recognized him by establishing the Mir Mulla Award in 2019. Among other professional honors he received were the President Award by the California Mosquito and Vector Control Association (2002), the highest Medal of Honor Award (2010) by the American Mosquito Control Association, and the Meritorious Recognition Award from the Science Society of Thailand (1997). The King of Thailand recognized his many years of continuous contributions in developing the academic infrastructure in Thailand for instruction, research, and control of vector-borne diseases. The Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District dedicated the new state-of-the-art Biological Control Facility to Mir S. Mulla in 2006 (Fig. 9). Upon retirement, Mulla was awarded the University of California’s Dickson Emeritus Professorship in 2006.

As a family man (Fig. 10), community activist, and friend, Mulla made tremendous differences in many people’s lives. At the same time, as a mentor, scientist, and colleague, he helped many professionals in establishing their careers in vector biology and control. I arrived at Mulla’s Laboratory at 2:00 pm, June 2, 1995, and met with him in his office located at Room 212, Entomology Research Museum. I left his laboratory on October 3, 2002, due to an employment change, but maintained a close connection. During my career time with Mulla from a postdoctoral to research entomologist, I was molded from rough clay to fine chinaware in many ways by reconstructing my knowledge in medical and veterinary entomology, gaining practical research experience and skills, enhancing my writing and publishing capability, improving my language skills and communications, and developing my professional networks by following Mulla’s steps. I was led by Mulla to research laboratories, insectaries, mosquito-breeding grounds in urban areas, agricultural fields, dairy wastewater lagoons, pastures, vineyards, and elsewhere. He was the role model who actually was involved in conducting the experiments, digging in the mud and wading in the water, while being exposed to the extremely harsh conditions outdoors together with me. He was also the one who sat by his desk for hours to read through and critique my manuscripts tirelessly. He advised me, “Never take any information and knowledge for granted, including previous publications.” After publishing 32 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters with Mulla during 1997–2014, I felt that I was able to walk like a toddler in scientific writing in English with logical thinking. Gradually, the red ink marks made by Mulla on my manuscripts become less and less noticeable. Learning and training from 24 coauthored presentations during 1997–2005 with Mulla at professional conferences made me an acceptable and understandable speaker in my second language. I cannot overemphasize that Mulla brought me to the world of vector biology and control through his global network, which created tremendous opportunities for my career growth. I am so grateful that Mulla faithfully focused on whom I could become instead of who I was. He shared with me “Do what you are passionate about and good at, otherwise you will not go far: from job to career then life.” His encouragement, endorsement, and signature inspired me and made me believe that no roads are longer than my legs. I want to express my lifetime thanks by saying “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” (Isaac Newton) like you!

Mulla was one of the very few people who impacted my personal life significantly (Fig. 11). He was always humble and approachable, and shared with me that we “tell one’s character by how he treats ones that are underprivileged.” His high standard as a family man taught me a way to live and goals to achieve. Outside laboratory and field research, we chatted casually about many things in life when we shared Thai cuisine, one of Mulla’s favorites, in inland southern California. When I needed him in my personal life, he was always available, impressively meaning that he was always available even for the times I did not “have a need.” My family has been growing along with the care, love, and support of Mulla and his beloved wife, Lelia, since 1995. I want to quietly and politely say that Mulla was not a huge fan of leisure entertainment, preferring instead the outdoors and nature as seen in his relaxation at Taylor's Falls, St. Croix, Minnesota (2007), while visiting his son David with his wife Lelia after retirement (Fig. 12).

From Mr., to Dr., to Professor Mulla, Mir Mulla went through a historical tunnel with unparalleled success, as a family man, mentor, scientist, community activist, partner, friend, colleague, and more. He lived a highly achieving and rewarding life and made significant differences in other people’s lives. Many universities, organizations, communities. and individuals have benefited from his lifelong contributions. We believe that “If we can sit under a shade now, someone planted the tree earlier,” and he was the one who did it! Mulla will be greatly missed by his loving family (Fig. 13), friends, students, and colleagues here in the USA and overseas. We will meet Mir Mulla again one day.

I am grateful to the following institutions, organizations, and individuals for their invaluable assistance and encouragement in the preparation of my memorial lecture and this manuscript: academic institutions: University of California (Berkeley and Riverside), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), University of Tehran (Iran), Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Léon (Mexico), University of the Punjab (Pakistan), Government College University (Pakistan); international, national, and regional organizations; UNDP, FAO, WHO (WHOPES), USAID, AAAS, ESA, AMCA, SOVE, MVCAC, MVCDs, the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, the Orange County Mosquito and Vector District, the Northwest Mosquito and Vector Control District, the Islamic Society of Riverside and Orange Counties (California); governments: Ministry of Science and Technology (Thailand), Hubei Academy of Medical Sciences (China), US-NIH, USAID, US-CDC; industries: Abbott Laboratories, Valent BioSciences, Zoecon, Wellmark, Central Life Sciences, and others; individuals: members from Mulla’s families, particularly Shireen and Bruce Mooers, Lal Mian, Chow-Yang Lee, Major S. Dhillon, Yongxing Jiang, Bradley Mullens, Ary Faraji, J. Wakoli Wekesa, Mark Breidenbaugh, Ruide Xue, Michelle Q. Brown, Peter DeChant, and Mortera Zaim. The author duly acknowledges the invaluable review by Lal Mian and Shireen Mooers, which significantly improved the quality of this paper.

Special thanks are due to the AMCA for its continued effort since 1979 to honor those who have served the AMCA or who have significantly contributed to the teaching, mentorship, research, and development in management of mosquitoes and other disease vectors. I was truly thrilled for this opportunity to present Mulla’s lifetime achievements to the audience of the 90th AMCA Annual Meeting in Dallas, TX, in March 2024 (Fig. 14). Interestingly, Mulla was a memorial lecturer for the honoree Stanley B. Freeman at the 60th AMCA Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA, in April 1994 (Mulla 1994). The Memorial Lecture will continue to serve as a platform to honor, remember, and document the lives of those whose life experiences remain to influence and motivate the next generation of scholars.