iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

And it’s day one of #MothsOnTour with @gmrc.bsky.social at #BSI25!! If you’re moth curious, come chat to either me, @jenniesc.bsky.social or Prof Wakefield about the #Galleriamellonella 3Rs in vivo model and see what it’s all about with the wiggly 🐛🐛

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Hehe! I mean they also happen to be spot on, so can’t complain!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I fear that particular horse might have already bolted

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Its only been two months and our new PhD student is already making memes of me.

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Arnaud Martin @evolvwing.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

🚨New paper! 🚨 @jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this work on the silk glands of the pantry moth. These two long tubes inside the caterpillar continuously make a ton of silk How does this special organ work? www.cell.com/iscience/ful... @cp-iscience.bsky.social 🧵THREAD🧵

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Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

We have a funded NERC PhD studentship! Selfish X chromosomes are these bizarre things where males carrying the selfish X suffer from imploding testes. Lots to do in this space, especially in evolutionary, stress, and infection biology. Please share! #PhDchat #AcademicSky @uniexecec.bsky.social

An advertisement for the project Cryptc consequences of a selfish X chromosome. It shows chromosome mapping indicating many inversions, flies with eye colour phenotypes (wild-type brighter than selfish X), and sections of testes that show ordered (wild-type) or deformed structure (selfish X).

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Very patient wife entertained a visit to damp, slightly dilapidated velodrome, where the only other people present were playing blindfolded football. 148 days to go! #paris-roubaix2026

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Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

中国国家留学基金委和英国埃克塞特大学合作奖学金（博士生项目） There is still time to apply for this China Scholarship Council PhD opportunity. www.exeter.ac.uk/study/pg-res... Interested students please email at the email in the advertisement below. Thanks for circulating! #Drosophila #Aphid #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky

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Arnaud Martin @evolvwing.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by @donyaniyaz.bsky.social @lucalivraghi.bsky.social High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers peerj.com/articles/202... @peerj.bsky.social

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Cool find on the dog walk - I believe it’s a scarletina bolete - not for the pot until you’re sure though!

Red and yellow stemmed bolete with brown cap, with stem staining blue in places

When cut in half, the bolete changed colour, going from yellow to staining a vivid blue within a second or two

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Caught the last of the light on the way home and a few winter chanterelles for tea!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Picked up this lovely book from a charity shop for £2 and quite charmingly it’s full of little clippings from over a quarter of a century ago, yet still relevant.

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

This weekend‘s activity now sorted courtesy of Emorsgate - trying to bolster the species in my wild patch for next year.

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

More chunky chaps, this time rose chafer grubs - back underground now to see them next year

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Today’s rearing had some chunky chappies, but I‘m looking forward to the day when the Moby Dick of Galleria reported in this study turns up at 740mg (current PB is ~650mg) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... #fatmothweek

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Sebastian Bruchmann @doktorbasti.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Had a brilliant time in Liverpool at Edge Hill University for the Galleria mellonella Workshop 🐛 Grateful to be invited as a speaker, the great chats and new connections. Amazing to see the wide range of applications, hope our time lapse imaging work can add to the field!

Me (Sebastian Bruchmann) giving a presentation titled "Towards a scalable platform for high-throughput virulence assays"

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

hopefully galleria users can celebrate the end of hourly galleria poking sessions

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Our final talk is from @doktorbasti.bsky.social at @cam.ac.uk on the scalable imaging platform is developing to automate health and mortality scoring during microbial virulence assays #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Next a presentation from Toby Jenkins and Simon Booth from @uniofbath.bsky.social on their work using lasers to improve the Galleria burn wound infection model originally developed by @evgeniamaslova.bsky.social #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

@cjcoates.bsky.social from @universityofgalway.bsky.social and @swanseauni.bsky.social gives us an overview on Galleria as an aspirant toxicology model for shellfish poisoning syndrome #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

After the first break we have Prof Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy from PEVITAC @uniofreading.bsky.social on their advances in toxicological and antimicrobial testing using Galleria #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Next up is @jenniesc.bsky.social of @exeter.ac.uk / @gmrc.bsky.social giving an overview of the Galleria mellonella Research Centre activities! #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

The 2025 Galleria mellonella Workshop is off to a start at Edge Hill University, with an opening talk on the Galleria Envenoming Model from @rachelhclare.bsky.social #galleriamellonellaworkshop2025

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Galleria mellonella Research Centre @gmrc.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

🐛 Research-grade Galleria mellonella — hand-picked for researchers, BY researchers! Planning experiments for Sept/Oct? Get in touch now! ✅ In-house reared, no antimicrobial additives ✅ Hand-selected for quality ✅ +10% extra to cover in-transit loss ✅ Flexible shipping options 📩 gmrc@exeter.ac.uk

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Incredible what one application of Just For Men can do.

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Ps. for those who might have on the fence and considering coming - the scenery, wildlife and snorkelling on your doorstep are incredible

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Back from Kolymbari, and had such an amazing time with an incredible community of lepidopterists #lepgencrete. Great to get the opportunity to talk about what we're up to with @gmrc.bsky.social and spread the word about the #galleriamellonella infection model. Can't wait for #lepgen13 in 2028!

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Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

You want to collect insects (and maybe other arthropods) for reference genome sequencing, but don't want to spend a fortune on dry ice shipping! All you gotta do is SQUISH. THAT. BUG! More details in our recent preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

a silly #SciArt redraw of the squish that cat meme, but it is a grey stickfigure squishing a mosquito (that looks like a little cat) with the text SQUISH THAT BUG!

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NC3Rs @nc3rs.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Wax moth larvae are growing in use as a partial replacement for rodents, from infection and immunity research to toxicology. The fourth annual Galleria mellonella workshop is organised by Dr Rachel Clare in collaboration with @gmrc.bsky.social 🗓️15 September 👉Register: nc3rs.org.uk/events/galle...

A wax moth larvae (Galleria mellonella) in a plastic petri dish.

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Galleria mellonella Research Centre @gmrc.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

🌟Excited to announce our first speaker for GMW2025 🎤Prof. Khutoryanskiy (www.pevitac.co.uk) will join us with a talk on: “Galleria mellonella in Toxicology & Antimicrobial Evaluation: A PEVITAC Perspective on Scientific & Commercial Impact” 🐛Info: www.gmrcuk.org/galleria-mellonella-workshop-2025

gmrcuk.org

GALLERIA MELLONELLA WORKSHOP 2025

We are very pleased to announce that the annual Galleria Mellonella Workshop is back for 2025! This year, the workshop will run for the first time in the north of England - at Edge Hill...

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Galleria bucket hat is a conference essential

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

The lep meeting is only every three years and i was gutted to miss the 2022 one, so very happy to be here! Enjoy the 2026 trip!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Yep - the main block where I stayed back in 218 is still out of action but the rooms in the semicircular building is open (and the rooms now have AC)

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Orthodox academy of crete knows how to do conference accommodation!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Ready for the 12th international workshop on molecular biology and genetics of Lepidoptera. Kolymbari here we come!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Our hop plant is doing a lot better this year, so looking to surpass last years target of 11 hops contribution to bristol hops collective. Bonus side benefit has been it acting as a little caterpillar farm with some knot grass moth and comma larvae coming along nicely

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Our most recent visitor to the LSI had me do a double take, but is instead a closely related species to our very own moth residents! Turns out Aphomia sociella look very similar to Galleria, but with more distinct light and dark markings and a longer and flatter body

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Quickly coming up next though is a return to Greece - this time to Crete for the 12th International workshop on Molecular Biology and Genetics of Lepidoptera! Bit of a mouthful to say, but i'll be giving a talk on the mothy things we have going on with #Galleriamellonella at the @gmrc.bsky.social 🐛

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Back from holiday, but managed to sneak in a little moth excursion whilst in Athens where I met Bill Kotsinis! He's having a go at larger scale Galleria rearing as host for nematodes at the Agricultural University of Athens. Thanks very much to Prof Ioannis Giannakou and his lab for the hospitality!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

And my first visit from a speckled wood butterfly this year, which gives a good reason to keep the grass longer

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

A beautiful Pyrausta purpuralis female chilling on the catmint. I imagine this means I’ll have plenty of hungry caterpillars to look at in a few weeks too!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Perennial cornflowers have recovered from a bit of transplantation shock and already up and running for the bee buffet 🐝🪻

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

May in the UK is my absolute favourite time of the year - especially in the West Country. Devon Avon currently top spot for favourite Avon!

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James Pearce @jamescpearce.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Thank you Hodshill near bath for the reminder of what maximum heart rate feels like, and confirming that roadie legs are well and truly gone. A better plan next time would be to leave bike at home and just visit the Wheatsheaf

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