PhD Insect Virology: impact of the insect’s virome on insect immunity & fitness

Insects are exposed to a diverse range of infectious viruses throughout their lives. In recent years, advances in largescale sequencing technologies have accelerated virus discovery, revealing a rich and diverse resident assemblage of viruses or 'virome' in insects, including covert viral infections that appear asymptomatic. To date it is unclear how such a virome impacts insect life.

In this project you will investigate how the resident virome impacts insect immune responses and fitness and thereby influences interactions with and effects of incoming virus infections. First, you will define the virome in several lepidopteran species and determine how the virome impacts insect life history traits and responses to incoming infections. In a next step, you will study in detail vertical transmission of the virome and investigate how the virome affects transgenerational immune priming (TgIP), a process whereby incoming infections lead to immune protection against secondary infections in the next generation.

By integrating virome sequencing and experimental infections with -omics approaches, microscopy, and gene editing tools, you will reveal fundamental mechanisms of insect immunity and virus-induced TgIP and the impact of the virome thereon.

This PhD project is part of a larger Vici project, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). As such, you will closely collaborate with another PhD student and a postdoc in this project, working on related questions.

As a PhD candidate, you will contribute to fundamental science in the context of insect virology. In addition, you will participate in cursory teaching of the chair group. You will be embedded in the Laboratory of Virology and be co-supervised by the Laboratory of Entomology. In addition, you will collaborate with (inter)national colleagues from both in- and outside Wageningen University & Research.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Designing and executing experiments with insects and viruses, measuring life history traits, immune traits and responses to virus infections;
• Investigating virus transmission using hybridization techniques and confocal microscopy;
• Analysing complex datasets involving genomics, transcriptomics, small RNA sequencing and proteomics;
• Teaching in courses and supervising BSc and MSc thesis students;
• Writing and presenting research at/in internationally renowned conferences/journals.

You will work here
You will work within the Insect Virology group, as part of the NWO Vici project ‘Invisible influencers: How hidden virus infections shape insect life’ led by Dr. Vera Ros. The project is aimed at disentangling how the insect’s virome impacts insect immune responses, fitness and behaviour, and thereby influences interactions with and effects of incoming virus infections.

The Insect Virology group is part of the chair group Laboratory of Virology and research in Insect Virology focuses on multiple aspects of insect-virus interactions including mechanisms behind viral manipulation of insect behaviour, virus discovery, covert virus infections (i.e. infections without clear symptoms) in insects and the use of viruses for biological control of insect pests. You will be supervised by Dr. Vera Ros, Dr. Astrid Bryon (both WUR Laboratory of Virology) and Prof. Bregje Wertheim (WUR Laboratory of Entomology). In addition, you will also be embedded in the PE&RC graduate school (Home | PE&RC), which will allow you to follow a wide variety of training courses and will provide support during your academic journey.

The Laboratory of Virology is part of the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen University. It is located at the Wageningen Campus in the Radix building. We provide virology teaching at Wageningen University within BSc and MSc programs across various disciplines. The Virology chair group comprises around 35 members, including research/teaching staff, technicians, PhD candidates, postdocs and visiting researchers. Each year, an average of 25 BSc and MSc students undertake their final-year thesis research within Virology. The Virology group conducts fundamental research into plant viruses, insect viruses and arboviruses. Where possible, the knowledge generated is translated into applications aimed at improving food production and human and animal health.