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Unique impacts of veterinary entomology
Huck Institutes News | March 2025
Huck Institutes News | March 2025
This month we lead with a feature about the high-impact, interdisciplinary work of veterinary entomologist Erika Machtinger. Equally adept at working with horses, poultry, rodents and insects, her mission as a research scientist and extension educator improves outcomes across multiple sectors, from agriculture to industry to public health. Read on below to learn more about how and why Machtinger believes Penn State is uniquely suited to make meaningful contributions to any circumstance involving vector-borne diseases.
★ Feature Story
Inter-relational Impacts
Erika Machtinger, a self-described “horse girl from coastal Maine who fell in love with the weird things bugs do,” is a veterinary entomologist—one of just two dozen or so she estimates are working in academia across the U.S. She also leads the nation’s first and only vector-borne disease extension team, which is charged with educating the public about pest-related disease transmission. Machtinger’s work impacts wildlife, agriculture, industry, and public health across the U.S.
“Penn State has built a framework for research that breaks down the siloes between faculty working in different disciplines and scales...Importantly, we aim to design our research questions and solutions in collaboration with stakeholders, so we address critical issues and provide strategies that can be immediately put into practice.”
A recent notable example is a study undertaken by her team to better understand why a particular tick control product worked extremely well in some cases, but not at all in others. By collecting and integrating data about the ticks, the mice that carry them, and environmental conditions, Machtinger made a key discovery that explained exactly when, why and how the product would do the job and when it would not.
Thermacell, maker of the Tick Control Tubes being evaluated, had been preparing to pull the product off the market. But thanks to Machtinger’s research, the company was able to simply modify the user instructions to ensure the tubes would always do the job. It was a win not just for Thermacell, but for the public, as few options are commercially available for homeowners to deploy without hiring professional pest control services.
For another recent study, this one tied to the poultry industry, Machtinger led the evaluation of an anti-parasite drug for the Food and Drug Administration. Developed by pharmaceutical giant Merck, the drug targeted the northern fowl mite and red poultry mite. Both can have devastating effects on the health of domestic chickens, causing anemia or even death and severely impacting the productivity of the poultry industry.
“One of the great things about Penn State is these group collaborations. I've had many, many awesome discussions, not just as a collaborator, but by asking ‘can I pick your brain about something? Can I ask you, is this something I should be thinking about?’ That’s been wonderful. The resources that are available intellectually as well as practically, on the ground…I don't know if they’re matched anywhere.”
This kind of study is possible at very few places outside of Penn State, which is home to specialized scientists like Machtinger as well as the capable staff and required level of facilities available at the University’s Poultry Research and Education Center.
Slice of Life
Increased antibiotic use can lead, seemingly paradoxically, to more problematic infections, as the bacteria evolve to resist the treatment. The answer to this antimicrobial resistance, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called “one of the world’s most urgent public health problems,” might be a medication used for kidney disease, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State.
“We found that sevelamer can act as an ‘anti-antibiotic’ by capturing off-target vancomycin and daptomycin — two commonly prescribed antibiotics — in the gut, preventing resistance evolution without compromising systemic antibiotic effectiveness.”
While the findings were made in mice, the researchers said there are direct implications for human medicine. The team plans to conduct clinical trials to evaluate sevelamer’s effectiveness in human patients receiving vancomycin or daptomycin. They also plan to explore whether sevelamer might prevent resistance evolution of other types of antibiotics excreted into the gastrointestinal tract.
A new method of examining gene expression patterns called landscape transcriptomics may help pinpoint what causes bumble bees stress and could eventually give insight into why bee populations are declining overall, according to a study led by researchers at Penn State. The team published their findings in the journal Molecular Ecology.
“It’s like forensic biology, where you can look at an organism’s gene expression patterns and identify a signature or fingerprint that relates to the stress it’s experiencing. Landscape transcriptomics should allow us to identify stressed populations of target species much more rapidly than traditional approaches, which require collecting and analyzing many samples over long periods of time.”
After analyzing the transcriptomes of these bees, the researchers found that the model was once again very accurate in predicting which stressors the bees were experiencing. However, the researchers found that these signatures didn’t last long in the bees’ RNA. In bees collected the morning after a heat wave, when environmental temperatures had gone back to normal, their genetic signatures for heat stress were no longer visible.
But this also meant that the researchers could glean precise details about how bees go about their day. For example, they discovered that many bees exhibited signatures of starvation stress when they were collected in the morning as compared to the evening, which might give insight into how bees forage and their motivation to forage.
A synthetic microbiome therapy, tested in mice, protects against severe symptoms of a gut infection that is notoriously difficult-to-treat and potentially life threatening in humans, according to a team of researchers at Penn State.
The findings were published March 3 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. The researchers also filed a provisional application to patent the technology described in the paper.
“This project is a first step in trying to understand how complex microbial communities function to affect the host, then turning that around to learn how to develop microbiome-targeted therapies.”
Bisanz said that the team’s approach to microbiome science could be used to understand complex host-microbial interactions in conditions like inflammatory bowel disease with the potential to develop novel therapies.
Accolades & Awards
Sarah Assmann, Waller Professor of Plant Biology at Penn State, has been awarded the Masatoshi Nei Innovation Prize in Biology. The prize is intended to recognize a preeminent scientist who is on the faculty at Penn State, is an innovator in their field and has achieved outstanding scientific research and leadership in the biological sciences.
“Sarah has been a dedicated member of our department for over 30 years, and her research and mentorship have been invaluable. She has made a significant impact in the field of plant biology, from her undergraduate years at Williams College to her career at Penn State.”
Assmann will be presented with the prize and give a lecture, titled “RNA Biology, Food Security, and Revisiting the Myth of Sisyphus,” from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, in Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library, at Penn State University Park.
Nazifa Tabassum, left, and Katie Yan spoke at ENVISION: STEM Career Day Supporting Young Women on March 29.
Nazifa Tabassum, a student in the Huck Institutes’ Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Biosciences (MCIBS) Intercollege Graduate Degree Program, is one of two I AM STEM contest winners this year, along with Katie Yan, a biology doctoral candidate and Barbara McClintock Science Achievement Graduate Fellow.
The two served as this year's keynote speakers for ENVISION on Saturday, March 29, where they shared their experiences in STEM and provided advice to middle school and high school students eager to get involved as scientists. Both Tabassum and Yan shared their journeys in science and where they see themselves in the future in a Q&A published by Penn State’s Eberly College of Science.
Core Topics
The Huck's High-Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility offers state-of-the-art instruments to meet all of your MRI needs. Our staff provides training, assistance, and expertise to ensure you receive the highest quality data and can interpret it clearly. A new set of videos is now available on the facility’s website to explain specific services and instrumentation.
Additionally, we invite you to attend the High Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Symposium on April 25th in 233 HUB-Robeson Center. This event is designed for both current and prospective users, as well as anyone interested in MRI technology.
The Huck Catalysis (Huck C) program coordinates university-wide interdisciplinary Life Sciences research development and collaboration activities with an emphasis on scholarship that crosses multiple academic units. Working with other units, Huck C provides support and programming to facilitate research partnerships, support strategic planning, identify funding opportunities, form interdisciplinary collaborations, and submit these proposals through SIRO.
The following are exceptionally innovative, recurring complex interdisciplinary research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term planning:
Huck Institutes' Catalysis Program is supporting a team that’s putting together the internal limited submission. If interested in joining, please reach out asap to [email protected]. If selected, we'll continue to look for collaborators.
Note: P30 Clinical Trial not allowed
Robotic platforms are deployed in various national security contexts, but many operational environments and applications remain out of reach for existing technologies. Nature provides inspiration and solutions to advance robotic technologies, but the performance of biological systems remains largely unmatched even as robotic systems become increasingly sophisticated. Recent advancements in—coupled with the convergence of—engineering and biology have propelled the development of biohybrid robots, which combine biological and synthetic components. The HyBRIDS ARC opportunity seeks ideas to address the question: How can synthetic and biological components be integrated to enable biohybrid platforms that outperform traditional robotic systems?
Original Published Date: January 03, 2025
Original Inactive Date: May 07, 2025
Questions: [email protected]
The Plant Biotic Interactions (PBI) program supports research on the processes that mediate beneficial and antagonistic interactions between plants and their viral, bacterial, oomycete, fungal, plant, and invertebrate symbionts, pathogens and pests. This joint NSF/NIFA program supports projects focused on current and emerging model and non-model systems, and agriculturally relevant plants.
Originally Posted: May 15, 2020
Anticipated Funding Amount: $18,500,000
Note: Proposals accepted any time; check with NSF program directors prior to pursuing
The W. M. Keck Research Program seeks to benefit humanity by supporting two different areas: (1) Medical Research and (2) Science & Engineering. Keck seeks distinctive, novel projects that question prevailing paradigms, of have the potential to break open new territory in their field.
Internal Submission Deadline: June 18, 2025 at 4:00 p.m.
Recurrence of Opportunity: This call is repeated 2 times per year
Questions: [email protected]
Huck research attracts media attention from around the world. Here are a few highlights from this month:
Researchers use AI to analyze photographs of the placenta. [National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering]
Select corn lines contain compounds that serve as insecticides. [The Bradford Era]
Pesticides affect bumble bee health in complex ways. [Earth.com]
As measles outbreak surges, experts warn against global health funding cuts. [CNN]
Fruits that are surprisingly high in protein. [Health Digest]
Why painkillers don’t work as well for women. [National Geographic]
Machine vision system monitors greenhouse-grown specialty crop. [Vision Systems Design]
This simple tasty snack swap can reduce your risk of heart disease. [Study Finds].
Solar experts rank the most efficient panels of 2025. [The Cool Down]