Yeahji Jeong

Profile

Project Title: High Resolution Molecular Diagnostics to Improve Pollinator Health

Summary: Insect pollination services are crucial for large-scale agriculture and play a vital role in maintaining ecosystem stability, where honeybees are responsible for much of this pollination. However, numerous honeybee hives and many wild pollinator species are lost every year. Diseases greatly contribute to this decline. Identifying disease causes can be difficult, particularly when multiple pathogens co-infect a hive, or a new pathogen is involved.

High-resolution molecular medicine approaches, which provide millions of measurements per sample, have revolutionized medical research and practice over the past decade. We will similarly harness such high-resolution molecular approaches to develop a new and sensitive approach for monitoring bee health. 

With a proven track record, we plan to generate high-resolution data sets from RNA and DNA sequencing and high-resolution video monitoring. By combining large datasets with advanced data science, statistical and machine learning approaches, and cutting-edge visualization techniques, the resulting online “molecular health dashboard” for the bee will provide information including overviews of present pathogens or parasites, gut bacteria and physiological health based on activity levels of genes in multiple tissues in bees. This can become a powerful tool for regular testing, developing a straightforward way of continuously monitoring colony health in an easy and cost-effective manner that provides high-resolution insight on hive-health.

Supervisor:

• Prof Yannick Wurm

Research