Dr. Pepijn Luijckx

  Animal Parasitic Diseases   Bacterial pathogenicity   Biology   CLIMATE CHANGE   COEVOLUTION   DISEASE   Epidemiology   Evolutionary genetics   Freshwater ecology   GENETIC   HOST   Infectious diseases   Molecular population genetics   Parasitology   Public health   SEX   Vaccines

Recent outbreaks of diseases (e.g. Chinese coronavirus, Zika virus) underline the urgency of understanding how diseases transmit, spread and evolve. Although theory describing disease related processes has been well explored, direct empirical evidence for many key theories (e.g. the Red Queen Theory, density thresholds for disease outbreak) and their assumptions remains elusive. Validating these theories will be key to understanding future disease dynamics especially considering that infectious diseases are sensitive rising global temperatures associated with climate change. My research program seeks to test and validate evolutionary and ecological theory pertaining to diseases and parasites by asking: Do hosts density thresholds for disease spread exist? How does temperature and temperature variation impact disease outbreaks? How does genetic diversity among conspecific hosts influence the spread of disease? What is the genetic architecture underlying host-parasite interactions and how does it conform to the assumptions of evolutionary models? Why is sex so widespread despite its two-fold costs? To address these questions, I use Daphnia and its parasites (various microsporidia, bacteria, fungi and recently also a virus). This biomedical model system has numerous genetic tools available (QTL, GWAS, RNAi) and has a rich literature describing its biology. It is especially suited to perform experimental epidemiology, can be easily manipulated and is highly accessible for undergraduate and graduate students.