The present COVID-19 measures have limited our access to our laboratory facilities. This has provided us with additional time to plan and develop the smallest details of our project to ensure we use our lab time efficiently. Before starting, we will follow extensive lab trainings during which our supervisors. They will instrust us in how to work cleanly, efficiently, and safely with state of the art equipment. After the lab trainings, we will proceed with the planned experiments.
The objective of our project is to use bacteriophages and synthetic biology to contribute the problem of desert locust swarms (Schistocerca gregaria). Several approaches have been proposed to either prevent the swarming phase of the locusts or kill them selectively using phages as DNA delivery vector.