Research

Insects, be they pests or vectors of infectious diseases, have a critical incidence on human, animal and plant health.

Meanwhile, biology is facing a major transition by considering individuals as holobionts, i.e. entities emerging from the interaction of multiple organisms. These multi-partner interactions emerge as major elements of health issues to develop alternative and specific methods to control insect populations, based notably on the manipulation of insect behavior.

Micro-be-have gathers five laboratories of the Université de Lyon and one SME and is declined in three actions. 

• Action 1 is dedicated to assess the importance of host/microbes interactions in determining the behavior of their host. This will be developed on two insect vectors of public health and agricultural importance, the invasive tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus and the pest Bemisia tabaci.
• Action 2 is dedicated to the development of a new coordinated research effort on an emerging pest of both sanitary and economic importance, the bedbug Cimex lectularius, in collaboration with the local SME Izinovation.
• Action 3 is dedicated to the implementation of the platform Symbiotron that will provide confined laboratories of biosafety levels 2 and 3 for the manipulation of insects and their associated microorganisms and state-of-the art devices for behavioral studies and genetic engineering of insects.