
Honeybee as a model organism
The social honeybee has particular advantages as a model organism to study the host-gut microbiota interactions:
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It harbors a simple and specialized microbiota, dominated by only eight species.
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Core bacteria can be cultured and genetically engineered.
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Microbiota-free animals can be established in the lab.
Honeybee is the only model organism showing eusocial organization as human being. I am interested to use bee gut as a system for addressing widely ranging topics, from host-microbe interaction, gut microbial evolution, to bacteria and gene transmission through social contact.

We focus on developing high-throughput single-cell culturomics and microfluidic platforms to investigate strain-level diversity, host-microbe interactions, and coevolutionary mechanisms in gut microbiota. By integrating comparative genomics and host genetic analyses, we aim to unravel functional adaptations of symbionts and cross-domain regulatory pathways. We establish an interdisciplinary framework bridging microbial ecology, host genetics, and systems biology, providing innovative tools to uncover the evolutionary principles governing complex symbiotic systems.

We aim to elucidate how gut microbiota modulate complex sociobiological traits in honey bees. Leveraging axenic models and multi-omics platforms, we investigate microbial regulation of neuroactive pathways. By integrating genetic perturbation and metabolic tracing, we seek to unravel microbiota-driven mechanisms underlying behavioral plasticity in eusocial insects. This direction emphasizes the gut-brain axis as a frontier for understanding microbial contributions to social evolution, offering foundational insights into conserved pathways that may bridge insect models and human neurobehavioral disorders.

We pioneer synthetic microbiome engineering to address the global decline in pollinator populations. Our work focuses on reprogramming gut symbionts of honey bees through advanced techniques such as genome editing, synthetic gene circuits, and precision RNAi delivery systems. We aim to develop next-generation probiotics featuring pathogen-sensing kill switches, antimicrobial peptide synthesis modules, and immune-boosting functionalities. By constructing multi-strain synthetic communities and implementing dynamic regulation platforms, we integrate microbial chassis engineering, spatial biofilm control, and host-microbe signaling manipulation. Our solutions bridge fundamental research in insect-microbe symbiosis with translational applications in agricultural ecosystem resilience and conservation efforts.