Research Facilities

Dr. Barry Robert Pittendrigh is the Director of the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management and the John V. Osmun Endowed Chair Professor of Urban Entomology in the Department of Entomology at Purdue University. Dr. Pittendrigh previously held the C.W. Kearns, C.L. Metcalf and W.P. Flint Endowed Chair in Insect Toxicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and a Foundation Professorship at Michigan State University. He has received over 35 million dollars in grant funding and has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Dr. Pittendrigh is also the Director of the Feed the Future Legume Systems Research Innovation Lab, a 13.6 million research program on legume production and food systems. Dr. Pittendrigh also co-founded and co-directs Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), a scalable extension program (including work on stored product pests and I.P.M.) that has touched over 50 million people in 130+ countries in over 260 different languages and dialects (with high levels of use in the U.S.A. through YouTube). The SAWBO program has or continues to work with USAID, the W.H.O., F.A.O., the World Food Programme, numerous governmental and intergovernmental agencies globally, T.V. stations, hospitals, and many other individuals and academic institutions (e.g., John Hopkins University, Northwestern University, and Baylor College of Medicine). Dr. Pittendrigh previously directed the Body Louse Genome Sequencing Consortium, a 60+ member group from across the globe and has a long-running track record working on head and body lice. This work culminated in a 2010 PNAS publication on the draft genome of the body louse; Dr. Pittendrigh was the senior author on the paper, which included many prominent scientists globally, including Dr. J. Craig Venter. Dr. Pittendrigh’s research program spans from basic molecular biology to integrated pest management (I.P.M.) and finally to how to scale educational information (e.g., I.P.M. knowledge) to large numbers of people when and where the knowledge is needed. He has or continues to work in numerous insect systems, including stored product pest systems, bedbugs, termites, and crop pest complexes. Trained as a Drosophila (fruit fly) geneticist, toxicologist and entomologist, he uses this insect system to study strategies to slow the evolution of pesticide resistance or inhibit pesticide resistance altogether. His program is question and solution-focused; he uses various tools ranging from organismal level bioassays to genomics/proteomics/metabolomics, population genetics, and computational modeling using big data.

The main focus of the lab is conducting efficacy trials to support development and marketing of pest control products. The laboratory has conducted a wide range of laboratory and field efficacy trials including compound screening, insecticide residue studies, novel formulation evaluations, bait development trials, and comparative efficacy studies. The laboratory maintains 6 species of pest ants: pharaoh ants (Monomorium pharaonis), harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex occidentalis), Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), carpenter ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus), odorous house ants (Tapinoma sessile), and red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). Field testing is available on all of the above species in a wide range of settings including residential homes, apartment buildings, farms, and other areas where pest ants occur. Additional test species are available based on client needs and seasonal pest dynamics. The laboratory can be further customized to perform more complex tests depending on specific testing protocols and EPA requirements.

The Ant Laboratory in the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management is a 1,800 square foot facility for conducting basic and applied research on a wide range of urban pests. The laboratory consists of 4 separate rooms: (1) colony rearing room, (2) crawling insect and repellency testing room, (3) direct spray and residual testing room, and (4) urban arthropod testing room. All rooms are maintained at 80°F, 45% RH, and a 14h:10h light:dark photoperiod providing ideal space for colony development and product testing.

The Pietri Lab is broadly focused on understanding the complex relationships between insects and the microbes that they host, from the organismal to the molecular level. Our work lies at the intersection of medical and urban entomology. That is, we are interested primarily in insects and arthropods that have adverse effects on health in and around human dwellings. Many blood-feeding urban arthropods such as mosquitoes, lice, and ticks are well known to transmit numerous disease-causing microorganisms to humans during the feeding process. Additionally, others such as bed bugs, cockroaches, and mites are also understated contributors to infectious and allergic disease while affecting mental health. The relationships between insects and microbes encompass not only human pathogens, but also symbiotic microbes that are vital to the biology of their insect hosts, as well as entomopathogens that cause insect-specific disease. We employ diverse approaches and tools drawing from the disciplines of microbiology, insect physiology, and molecular cell biology to integratively study how insects interact with these diverse sets of microorganisms. In doing so, we aim to contribute to the development of novel environmental, biological, and chemical interventions to reduce the burden of urban insect pests and their adverse effects on health in human dwellings while also providing unique fundamental insight into the biology of infection.