The Evotron: an experimental evolution system for investigating and predicting agrochemical resistance

这项工作的总体目标是建立一个新的实验范式，用于调查和预测农业化学品抗性的演变，目前对全球粮食安全构成重大威胁。这项工作选择的实验生物是线虫C。elegans，它具有实验进化工作所需的关键生活史特征（例如3天的世代时间），结合了充分表征的农业化学品抗性生物学和优秀的遗传工具包。很难想象其他任何相关的多细胞生物体也能如此成功地做到这一点。实验进化在C.秀丽线虫是公认的，但尚未以任何重要的方式应用于农业化学品抗性，因此我们提出的方法是新颖的，并为学术界和工业界之间的独特合作中的博士生提供了出色的培训和研究机会。

The overall aim of this work is to establish a novel experimental paradigm for investigating and predicting the evolution of agrochemical resistance, which currently poses a significant threat to global food security. The experimental organism of choice for this work is the nematode C. elegans, which possesses the crucial life-history traits required for experimental evolution work (e.g 3-day generation time), combined with well-characterised agrochemical resistance biology, and an excellent genetic toolkit. It is impossible to imagine any other relevant, multicellular organism in which this could be done as successfully. Experimental evolution in C. elegans is well established but has yet to be applied in any significant way to agrochemical resistance, so the approach we propose is novel and offers an outstanding training and research opportunity for a PhD student in a unique collaboration between academia and industry.