Angharad Gatehouse

Angharad M. R. Gatehouse is an entomologist in the UK. Gatehouse is Professor of Invertebrate Molecular Biology at Newcastle University, is on the Council of the International Congress of Entomology, and is the Director of Expertise for BioEconomy[1][2].

Angharad Gatehouse
Scientific career
InstitutionsNewcastle University

Research

Gatehouse's research examines plant and pest insect interactions at the molecular level, and how this can be used for integrated pest management.

She has researched compounds for novel biopesticides which may have less or no impact on non target organisms such as pollinators and predators. Her team tested the Hv1a/GNA fusion protein as a potential biopesticide, the compound combines a venom toxin of an Australian funnel web spider and snowdrop lectin and they found it did not have detrimental effects on honeybees.[3]

Her work has looked at how plants interact with insects and how this can be manipulated to reduce the attraction of crop plants to insect pests.  She tested gene edited rice plants which suppress the production of serotonin with an inactivated CYP71A1 gene, the plants were more resistant to the brown plant-hopper and the striped stem borer.[4]

Her team identified that the compound limonene makes Marigold plants good companion plants with tomatoes, as they repel the insect pest the glasshouse whitefly[5].

Books
  • Environmental Impact of Genetically Modified Crops, edited with Natalie Ferry, published by CABI in 2009[6].

Honours and awards
  • Awarded the Certificate of Distinction by the International Congress of Entomology in 2016[7], the 'world's top honour for entomology'[8].
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2016[1].

References
  1. "Staff Profile - Natural and Environmental Sciences, School of - Newcastle University". www.ncl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  2. "ICE Council – ICE2020 Helsinki" (in Finnish). Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  3. "Could spiders be the key to saving our bees?". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  4. "Lack of 'happiness' hormone makes rice plants less attractive to insects". phys.org. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  5. "How the humble marigold outsmarts a devastating tomato pest". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  6. "Environmental Impact of Genetically Modified Crops". CABI.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  7. "Certificate of Distinction for Outstanding Achievements | Entomological Society of America". www.entsoc.org. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  8. Lognonne, Ruth (2014-10-22). "Spider venom scientist from Newcastle University is honoured". nechronicle. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
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