On this episode I talk to Balint Kacsoh about how he uses ants to learn about genetics and behaviour. We cover what makes an ant an ant, caste systems, colonies and more.
The show notes for this episode feature images of all the ants we talk about: https://curiositycake.co.uk/ants
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As a graduate student at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, under the mentorship of Dr. Giovanni Bosco, Balint's primary studies were on learning, memory, aging, and social behavior in Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly). He developed novel behavioral paradigms accounting for the natural life history of the fly. This led to identification of new behaviors in addition to dissection of the associated underlying physiological, genetic, and neurological change. Additionally, he was involved in a cancer study, where he participated in characterizing a new drug in a patient derived tumor.
Currently, Balint is the Rebecca Ridley Kry Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in the lab of Dr. Shelley Berger at the University of Pennsylvania. His long-term goal is to answer the questions above using the more fluid reproductive plasticity present in ponerine ants such as Harpegnathos saltator, which he is using to study the epigenetic effects of caste identity as a function of social environments. He is also utilizing Camponotus floridanus as a model to study the effect of social interaction on epigenetics, lifespan, and physiology. And finally he is studying Atta cephalotes as a model to dissect epigenetic regulation of caste determination and behavior in an advanced social system.
