The diversity of small crawling, hopping and flying animals is a wonder of the natural world.
Over half a billion years of evolutionary tinkering have spawned an amazing variety of body plans, behaviours, and ecological roles. However, a destructive minority of these animals, vector disease, devastate crops, and cost global agriculture hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The Specifly lab asks: how do we control the few without harming the many?
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We combine evolutionary genomics, functional genetics, and cutting-edge genetic engineering to understand how arthropods evolve resistance to chemical insecticides — and to build the next generation of precise, species-specific alternatives.
Prospective students, postdocs, and research partners are warmly invited to explore our work.
Contact
For enquiries, please email A/Prof Charles Robin - crobin@unimelb.edu.au