James Pearce

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

@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

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

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

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

🐛 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

Wasps (and me!) in @thesundaytimes.bsky.social today. Thanks @ben-spencer.bsky.social for championing wasps!

Get involved with #WaspPicnicSurvey and #BigWaspSurvey!
#SummerOfWaspLove
Links below!
@uclcber.bsky.social @uclnews.bsky.social
@adamhartscience.bsky.social

Incredible what one application of Just For Men can do.

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

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!

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!

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...

Galleria mellonella workshop in September, Edge Hill University
nc3rs.org.uk/events/galle...

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

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...

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...

🌟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

Galleria bucket hat is a conference essential

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!

*2018

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)

Orthodox academy of crete knows how to do conference accommodation!

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

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

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

The 12th international Workshop on molecular biology and genetics of the Lepidoptera REGISTRATION NOW OPEN We are delighted to invite you to join us at the Orthodox Academy of Crete, set just outside the lovely Cretan village Kolymbari, for a stimulating and enriching event. With 150 ...

For anyone interested, the program is here and looks like a fantastic week - events.gwdg.de/event/880/pa...

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 🐛