[SCAN] The insect Galleria mellonella as a powerful and highly versatile model

Title: The insect Galleria mellonella as a powerful and highly versatile model

Speaker: Dalila Mil-Homens

From: Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa

Abstract: In the past decades, there has been a growing public consciousness for novel experimental model hosts of human pathogens that are ethically more acceptable than mammalian models. The wax-moth larva Galleria mellonella has emerged as a promising invertebrate model host given its ethical advantages, low maintenance costs, rapid reproduction time, tolerance for human body temperatures, for having an innate immune system and other similarities to mammalian host models. This insect has increasingly been used to evaluate in vivo toxicity and efficacy of chemical compounds and antimicrobials, to model microbial (bacterial, fungal and viral) pathogenicity and to assess host–pathogen interactions during the course of infection.

In this seminar, I will present our experience using this model during the past fifteen years. We will describe the use of G. mellonella in an extensive range of studies from virulence to host-pathogen interactions and new therapies for important pathogens, as well as the most recent advances and new perspectives for this model.