Studying honey bee health in in vitro systems

蜜蜂作为传粉者的重要性不容低估：我们口中大约每三口食物中就有一口直接或间接依赖于蜜蜂，主要是通过它们的传粉活动。蜜蜂最近经常出现在北美的新闻中，因为在过去的四年里，加拿大和美国的养蜂人平均每年冬天损失大约三分之一的蜂巢；去年在温哥华岛的损失超过了80%！在美国，许多这样的损失被归因于神秘的蜂群衰竭失调，但根本不清楚导致CCD的原因是什么。在加拿大，冬季蜜蜂的大部分损失都归因于我们确实理解的问题：寄生螨、真菌感染和天气。养蜂人使用化学品来控制各种传染病，包括上面提到的螨虫和真菌，但这并不总是有效的，而且在任何情况下都是不可取的。不幸的是，我们对蜜蜂和它们的疾病之间的相互作用知之甚少，而这正是我们在这里要解决的不足之处。这项研究的重点是利用依赖于蜜蜂基因组测序的现代研究技术，发展我们对微生物引起蜜蜂疾病的机制的理解。我们的希望是，通过提高我们对疾病的理解，我们将能够设计出更好的方法来帮助这种最有益的昆虫应对目前威胁它的疾病。

The importance of bees as pollinators cannot be understated: approximately one out of every three bites of food we put in our mouths is directly or indirectly dependent on bees, largely through their pollination activities. Honey bees have been in the North American news frequently of late because beekeepers in Canada and the US have averaged loses of about one third of their bee hives each winter for the past four years; on Vancouver Island last year the losses exceeded 80%! In the US many of these losses have been attributed to the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder but it is not at all clear what the cause of CCD is. In Canada most of the winter losses of bees are attributed to problems we do understand: a parasitic mite, fungal infections and weather. Beekeepers use chemicals to control various infectious diseases, including the mite and fungi mentioned, but this is not always effective and is in any case undesirable. Unfortunately, we know very little about the interactions between bees and their diseases, and that is the deficiency we aim to address here. This research focuses on developing our understanding of the mechanisms used by microorganisms to cause disease in honey bees, making use of modern research technology that is dependent on having the honey bee genome sequenced. Our hope is that by improving our understanding of the diseases we will be able to design better approaches to helping this most beneficial insect deal with the diseases that currently threaten it.