Marcé Lorenzen

Professor, Entomology and Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University

The Lorenzen laboratory is part of the Genetic Pest Management (GPM) program at North Carolina State University. Currently our main research project is to elucidate the molecular mechanism that underlies a novel class of selfish-genetic elements found only in Tribolium flour beetles. Due to the selfish behavior of these―Medea‖ elements, they may be useful as gene “drivers” to push pesticide susceptibility into populations of insect pests of crops, or vector incompetence into populations of insect vectors of disease. For example: to force an anti-malarial gene into a mosquito population.