Greater Munich Metropolitan Area
Varroa mites (Varroa destructor) are the greatest threat to honey bees (Apis mellifera) and beekeeping with severe consequences for the ecosystems, biodiversity and pollination in agricultural production. In collaboration with the apicultural state institute in Hohenheim we have discovered the acaricidal activity of Lithium salts. In the past years the collaboration with Hohenheim yielded a robust and reliable treatment regimen based on Lithium salts. The therapy is highly effective, killing more than 97% of mites under field conditions, adult bees tolerate Lithium salts well and Lithium does not leave residues in bee products as honey, bee bread or wax. The treatment is reliable and the application is easy. Now we set out to obtain market approval for Lithium citrate as veterinary medicine to combat Vorroa mites.
RNAi would be a great method if the off target problem would not exist. RNAi can be done in high throuput and is transient, dose dependent, can be applied to essential genes and is a low cost approach to understanding gene function. What used to be an ambitious PhD thesis 2 decades could now be done in a week. However, it soon became apparent that there was a serious issue with specificity. Because every single siRNA deregulates the expression of a multitude of genes, the gene-phenotype relation is obscured in a way that the function of a gene remains unknown. Results of RNAi based assays and screens turned out to be rather delusive. But using a complex mix of siRNAs all targeting the same gene synergistically enhance the potency against the designated target, at the same time the off target effects are diluted out. siTOOLs Biotech GmbH developes, produces and commercializes these siRNA mixes - called siPOOLs - and provides a research reagents that finally does the trick it was originally proposed to do: simple, cost effective, fast and RELIABLE!
- overview/review current projects - coordinate contact between Intana and academia - grant applications - implement new technologies/methods - define future directions