Team:Tec-Chihuahua/test
October 2nd
Video conference with Dr. Ernesto Guzmán Novoa
Dr. Ernesto Guzmán is a professor and head of the Honey Bee Research Centre at the University of Guelph; he received a DVM degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a MSc and Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Davis. Dr. Guzmán has advised or co-advised the theses of more than 50 DVM, MSc, and Ph.D. students. Research in his lab focuses on three main areas: genetics, behavior and parasitic mites of honey bees, identifying factors that affect honey bee health.
On October 2, we met with Dr. Guzmán on a video conference to speak about our project; he referred to it as something new since to the best of his knowledge, no one has worked with bee’s antimicrobial peptide genes to treat diseases in these arthropods. He mentioned there might be some questions we won’t be able to answer until we get into bee experimentation, but we should consider possible risks such as the addition of external AMPs to the colony atrophying the natural production of AMPs in bees, as well as the possibility of weakening their microbiota.
He emphasized that it is not an easy project to develop as working with American and European foulbrood of honey bees is extremely complicated because of the specialized
infrastructure, techniques and studies required to work with honey bee brood diseases. It can take months or even years to standardize the protocols needed, so he was curious if we were planning to continue working on this project after the competition.
Finally, we were curious whether there were any regulations regarding experimentation on bees in his country, to which he answered there are none in Canada concerning experimentation on them, yet, he doesn't consider there should be since regulating it would hinder and inhibit research with them. Ultimately, he wished us luck and referred to our project as good and novel.
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