Investigating the Molecular Mechanisms of Honey Bee Disease
Jonathan Snow, Ph.D.
Department of Biology
Barnard College,
Columbia University
Honey bees, which provide pollination services of critical importance to humans in both agricultural and ecological settings, have recently suffered from increased mortality at the colony level, likely due to a complex set of interacting stresses. Key stresses thought to be involved include nutritional stress due to loss of appropriate forage, chemical poisoning from pesticides, changes to natural living conditions brought about through large-scale beekeeping practices, myriad environmental changes due to climate change, and infection by insect parasites and pathogenic microbes.
My research program now focuses on one main questions to help understand the challenges facing honey bee colonies and to generate solutions for use by beekeepers in the field. We study the infection of honey bees by the microsporidia species Vairimorpha (Nosema) ceranae. We have begun to characterize the developmental program of this pathogen and the cellular responses to various stressors in this key pathogen of the honey bee as well as closely related microsporidian species infecting other important invertebrates. We are also exploring potential therapeutics based on our work above and continue to characterize their efficacy and safety in honey bees.