Dr. Amelia Lindsey: The Microbial World (with Wolbachia)

What if I were to tell you that you had hundreds, if not thousands of microbes living on you hands, you would probably respond with ewwwwww...gross and immediately want to sanitize or wash our hands. If I were to tell you that not all of them are bad, but rather most of them are good, you might still be skeptical. Let’s take it one step further. What if I told you that we can use naturally occurring bacteria as a form of pest control. Wild right! One of these bacteria is Wolbachia. Wolbachia affects the reproductive system in certain insects and can make them sterile. The cool part is that Wolbachia do not affect humans or other large invertebrates, but it does infect many insects that we classify as pests. Today we explore the world of Wolbachia and learn about how these little bacteria can kick some insect pest butt with Dr. Amelia Lindsay......This is RadioBio!