OPEN POSITIONS - We are currently recruiting a 2-year postdoc and a 4-year research assistant.
Funding success! We are so excited and grateful that our proposal "What makes a super-spreader? Genetic control, evolutionary constraints and epidemiological implications of heterogeneity in host infectiousness" has been funded by the BBSRC. Lots of cool science to come over the next few years.
Welcome! To Sijun Xian who joins the lab as an Honours research project student. Sijun is testing how social context impacts the severity of infection.
2024
Congratulations! We are immensely proud of Mariangel for receiving a pass with Distinction on her MSc Research dissertation on the evolutionary constrains acting on super-shedding.
New paper! - We find that mtDNA variation acts as an immunomodulatory factor in adult flies, and that specific mitotypes can provide enhanced protection against bacterial, viral and parasitoid infections. Now accepted at PLOS Genetics!
New paper! - Some really fun work led by Katy on pathogen avoidance behaviour during feeding - flies are generally attracted to several bacterial pathogens. Not linked to immunity, probably linked to appetite for protein. Now accepted in Ecology and Evolution.
New paper! - More from Arun's PhD, this time describing the role of negative immune regulation in promoting disease tolerance during bacterial infection, now published in Physiological Entomology.
New paper! - Work led by Arun shows that IMD-mediated innate immune priming increases Drosophila survival and reduces pathogen transmission - is now published at PLOS Pathogens!
New paper! A long-running study led by Tiina Salminen's group finds that disrupting mitochondrial function in haemocytes in larval-stage flies can have beneficial effects on cellular immunity. This has now been published in BMC Biology!
New paper! Work led by Megan and three former Hons students shows that mitochondrial background can explain variable costs of immune deployment. Now published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Welcome to Cara Duffy and Tameem Somalya, who join the lab as Honours research project students!
2023
PhD positions - We are advertising 3 PhD projects to start in Sept/Oct '24. Get in touch if interested.
New preprint - We show that mitochondrial background can explain variable costs of immune deployment. Led by Megan and three former Hons students.
Welcome to Mariangel Gonzalez, who will do her MSc research project looking at the direct and correlated responses to selection for extreme pathogen transmission.
Congratulations to Kabir for graduating from his IDOH Master's program. It's been great to have you in the lab!
New paper! Our work describing how Duox and Jak/Stat signalling influences disease tolerance has been published in Developmental and Comparative Immunology.
New preprint - Work led by Arun on the immune regulation of immune priming and how it may impact pathogen transmission is now up on BioRxiv.
New paper - Work led by Megan and Vanika on tolerance of DCV infection is now published in Open Biology. Genetic variation in mortality tolerance and fecundity tolerance, associated with pastrel.
2022
Funding success- We are so excited that our NERC Exploring the Frontiers grant has been awarded, to investigate "What makes a super-spreader? The genetic architecture and evolutionary constraints on host heterogeneity in pathogen transmission"
Funding success - We have recently been awarded a Royal Society International Exchange grant to work with Vasilis Dakos in Montpellier on "Identifying early warning signals of critical transitions during infection". Exciting things to come over the next 2 years!
New paper - Our work with Imroze Khan's lab showing how ageing influences the antimicrobial peptide responses in flies has been accepted in Proceedings B.
Podcast - We were interviewed for the Heredity podcast to discuss our work on mitochondrial effects of activity and sleep.
New paper! Some fun work on infection and social interactions by Valeria Romano, Katy, and former Hons student, Amy Lussiana, published in Biology Letters.
New paper! Arun's work on Mechanisms of damage prevention, signalling, and repair impact disease tolerance has been accepted for publication in Proceedings B!
New paper! Variation in mitochondrial DNA affects locomotor activity and sleep in Drosophila melanogaster. Always happy to see an Honours project reach this stage!
Goodbye IEB! Our Institute has officially changed its name to the Institute of Ecology and Evolution.
New preprint! Host and pathogen drivers of infection-induced changes in social aggregation behavior.
Congratulations to our Hons students Olga Zawistowska, Michael Jamieson, and Julia Casanova for completing outstanding lab projects!
2021
Pedro recently gave talks at the Portuguese Drosophila meeting, and the Arthropodium seminar series hosted by the molecular entomology group at UFRJ-Brazil.
New preprint! Mito-nuclear interactions affect activity and sleep patterns in Drosophila. Always happy to see an Honours project reach this stage, with valuable help from Katy, Tiina and Flo Camus.
New preprints! Arun has recently uploaded three of his upcoming papers to BioRxiv, investigating how negative regulation of IMD, Jak/Stat signalling, and damage prevention and repair mechanisms all affect disease tolerance in fruit flies.
Welcome to Phoebe Thornhill who joins our lab as a PhD student funded by the Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health. Phoebe will work on natural genetic variation and immune regulation of pathogen acquisition and spread.
New preprint! Some collaborative work using epidemioloigcal models to undestand why Ostreococcus are often susceptible to viruses in the wild when low-cost resistance evolves quickly in the lab.
New paper! Work led by Tom Ratz and Katy Monteith showing that burying beetle females continue to provide high levels of parental caredespite a lethal bacterial infection has been published in Behavioral Ecology.
Welcome to Phoebe Thornhill who is doing a rotation in our lab as part of the Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health. Phoebe will work on immune regulation fo infection avoidance behaviours.
New paper! Jonti's work dissecting host genetics, sex and mating status as sources of heterogeneity in pathogen shedding and spread has been published in PLOS Pathogens!
2020
Paper published! Our collaborative work with Lauren White and Meggan Craft exploring how heterogeneity in host behaviour and susceptibility scales up to population-level disease dynamics has been published in Proceedings B.
Welcome to Megan Kutzer, who joins the lab as a postdoc! Megan was previously a postdoc in Sylvia Cremer's lab in Vienna, following a PhD with Sophie Armitage in Berlin.
New paper! Tiina Salminen's comprehensive review of how mitochondrial variation may affect innate immunity is published in Front. Immunology.
2019
New paper! Ali Hudson's Hons project showing diet-specific terminal investment following infection is now out in J. Evol. Biol.
New paper! Review with Zé Oliveira and Ana Bahia asks how are arbovirus vectors able to tolerate infection?
New paper! Work led by Jonti shows that viral infection causes sex-specific changes in fruit fly social aggregation behaviour
Congratulations Dr Siva-Jothy! Well done to Jonti for successfully defending his PhD!
Welcome to Mickael Bonnet who is visting us from U. Clermont-Auverge to do his MSc research project.
Congratulations to Tiina for receiving a 5-yr fellowship from the Finnish Academy of Sciences to continue her work on mitochondrial effects on immunity at Tampere U.
2018
Success! Our grant proposal with Tiina Salminen on Mitochondrial genetic effects on innate immunity has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust!
Pedro gave a seminar at Can Ruti Biomedical Reseach centre (IPTG) in Barcelona. What an amazing place!
Our work on the evolutionary consequences of damage limiting drugs was recently highlighted in the PLOS XV collection.
Our book chapter "The influence of parasites on insect behavior" is now published in Insect Behavior: From Mechanisms to Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences.
New paper! Work led by Jonti and Katy on infection avoidance during cannibalistic foraging and oviposition has been published in Behavioral Ecology.
Valéria Romano visited our lab from Kyoto University to start an exciting collaboration on the role of disease on social group structure.
New paper! We published a methods paper showing how we measure bacterial shedding from orally infected flies.
New paper! Pedro reported on a recent study in Current Biology showing how sickness behaviours and metabolism control disease tolerance to malaria.
2017
Congratulations to Jonti Siva-Jothy and Lauren White for getting an IDEAS Research Exchange grant to work on heterogeneity in pathogen transmission with me and Meggan Craft at U. Minnesota. Jonti and Lauren will swap labs for a few weeks this spring!
Pedro gave a seminar at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and someone filmed it!
Listen to Pedro speak about Infection Avoidance in Drosophila at the Royal Society meeting "The evolution of parasite and pathogen avoidance behaviours".