Dr Chris Pull’s recent online lecture entitled ‘Preventing epidemics – what do ants have to teach us?’ provided a fascinating insight into how social insects, with a particular focus on the colonies of ants, have seemingly solved the problem of infectious disease.
Chris is a Lecturer in Animal Behaviour in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, and a Stipendiary Lecturer at St Hugh’s College. He has long been fascinated with the lives of the tiny animals that quietly go about their business under our feet. Chris first started studying ants in 2011, completing a research master’s at Royal Holloway. Chris then began a PhD at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, where he investigated how ants detect and then prevent infections from turning into colony-wide epidemics. Returning to the UK and Royal Holloway, Chris’ postdoctoral work focused on the memory of foraging bumblebees. In 2020, Chris joined Oxford University’s Zoology Department and St Hugh’s College as Departmental and Stipendiary Lecturer, respectively.
You can watch the lecture in full below:
