New Paper: Queen Bees Offload Pesticides to Their Eggs

Publications

Published in Current Biology, led by our lab with Drs. Julia Fine at the USDA-ARS and Bruce Buchholz at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. We show that honeybee queens under chronic pesticide exposure shunt contamination into their eggs — “maternal offloading” — once worker-bee filtering is overwhelmed (95% filtered on day 1, down to 86% by day 10 in our nanocolony trials). This reveals a mechanism by which pesticide burden can build in a colony over time and potentially contribute to delayed colony collapse. Access full article here!

Featured in UCD News.

New Collaborative NIEHS R01 Grant: Standardizing Nanoplastic Neurotoxicity Measurement

Uncategorized

Our lab (with the Carney Lab, Biomedical Engineering) has received a $4M NIEHS grant to develop the first standardized method for measuring the neurotoxicity of airborne nanoplastics. We’ll characterize how pollutant-adsorbed nanoplastics (PANs) — nanoplastics carrying pesticides, heavy metals, and PFAS — cross the blood-brain barrier and affect gene activity linked to inflammation and disease. Goal: a repeatable exposure-to-harm standard to inform future regulation. Link to News Brief.

CAES 2026 Symposium

Presentations

The Nicklisch lab presented posters on their latest research at the 3rd annual UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Symposium, which included an engaging networking event for scientists across the college and industry.

Angela (left): “Developmental and caste-specific expression patterns of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in honey bees (Apis mellifera)”

Leo (middle): “Characterizing Microplastics Accumulation in the Bodega Marine Reserve (BMR)”

Eli (right): “Atmospheric Nanoplastics at Environmentally Relevant Concentrations Do Not Alter Gene Expression in Human Lung Epithelial Cells”