Anthony Boughton

Anthony Boughton worked in the Bonning lab for his Ph.D. in Entomology from 1995 to 2001, and then continued for a year of postdoctoral research. Anthony worked on the molecular and biological characterization of a black cutworm virus, Agrotis ipsilon multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus. This virus has potential for suppression of cutworms that deleteriously impact golf courses. Anthony subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Penn State University with Gary Felton, before moving to work as an entomologist with the USDA-ARS. The subject of Anthony Boughton's PhD dissertation was the use of wildtype and recombinant baculoviruses for management of insect pests.

Sandhya Boyapalle

Sandhya joined the Bonning lab in 2001 and conducted research toward her PhD in Microbiology (2005). She worked on the dicistrovirus, Rhopalosiphum padi virus, and screened multiple cell lines before establishing that a glassy-winged sharpshooter cell line supports replication of this virus. She also worked toward generation of infectious clones of this virus. Sandhya left to conduct postdoctoral research in Florida, and is now a Research Associate at the University of South Florida. She retained her interest in virology and works on Respiratory Syncytial Virus.Sandhya's PhD dissertation: A Cell Culture System and Production of an Infectious Clone of Rhopalosiphum Padi Virus (Dicistroviridae).  Dr. Sandhya is a Senior Scientist at the University of South Florida.

Abbey Brockhouse

Abbey Brockhouse worked as a Research Scientist with Bonning from 2001 to 2003. She worked on the ultrastructure of pericardial cells in the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta L. Abbey Brockhouse is now a research associate at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Emiliano Canton

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Canton was part of the Bonning lab from March 2017-May 2019. His background has focused on the use of the insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis for control of agricultural pests and vector species, particularly the mosquito Aedes agypti. He has worked with molecular biology and bioinformatic approaches on these insects. His current research deals with the gut physiology of the agricultural pest Nezara viridula, the southern green stink bug. His areas of expertise include bioinformatics, insect molecular biology, and pest control biotechnology. He holds a BS in Genomic Sciences, MS in Biochemistry, and a PhD in Biochemistry. He is currently a faculty member at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara.

Chun Cao

Chun Cao worked in the Bonning lab from 2001 to 2003 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate working on the function of a putative juvenile hormone esterase binding protein, DmP29. She is now working for Bioforce Nanosciences.

Jimena Carrillo-Tripp

Google Scholar

Dr. Carrillo-Tripp's work focuses on the study of insect viruses from the families Dicistroviridae and Iflaviridae. She participated in a collaborative project (PIs: B. Bonning, A. Toth and W. A. Miller) directed to understand the relationship between viral infection and nutritional stress in honey bee health. She also characterizes known and novel viruses with potential to be used as tools for biological control of insect pests. Dr. Carrillo-Tripp worked previously at DuPont Pioneer. She is now at the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y de Educacion Superior de Ensenada.

Yuting Chen

Dr. Chen's research in the Bonning lab focused on discovery of viruses in Hemiptera using next generation sequencing methods. She is also interested in modifying the discovered viruses, which could potentially be used for management of hemipteran pests. Dr. Chen is now a postdoctoral scholar at North Carolina State University.

Man Yeon Choi

Dr. Choi worked on plant virus delivery systems as a postdoctoral associate in the Bonning lab in 1999. Dr. Choi is now a Research Entomologist with the USDA-ARS. 

Nanasaheb Chougule

Nana Chougule worked in the lab from 2009 to 2012 as a postdoctoral research associate, and from 2012 to January 2014 as an Assistant Scientist III. Nana conducted research on modification of the Bacillus thuringiensis-derived cytolytic toxin, Cyt2Aa with a pea aphid gut binding peptide, to demonstrate that addition of the peptide significantly enhanced binding of the modified toxin to the gut, and enhanced toxicity to aphids relative to the wild type toxin. Nana is now working at BASF in North Carolina.

Galen Cobb

Laboratory Assistant

Galen Cobb joined the Bonning lab as a laboratory assistant in the summer of 2022. She is using molecular techniques to identify and quantify honey bee viruses in field collected honey bees. Her work in the Bonning lab complements her PhD research into interspecific transmission of bee viruses in wild bee communities. She holds a BA in Biology from the College of Wooster and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biology at UF.

Benjamin Diest

While in the Bonning Lab, Benjamin Diest worked on the modification of the Bt toxin Cry4Aa-S1 to increase toxicity against the soybean aphid for potential use in genetically modified soybean.  Specifically, his M.S. Thesis was on how to increase binding of Cry4Aa-S1 to the soybean aphid gut by incorporating soybean aphid gut binding peptides into Cry4Aa-S1. Given the typical correlation between toxin binding to the insect gut epithelium and toxicity, an increase in binding of the toxin to the gut epithelium could be associated with a similar increase in toxicity. His MS Thesis is here.  Benjamin Diest is now an Applications Scientist at Advanced Analytical Technologies.

Adam Dolezal

Dr. Dolezal's work in the Bonning Lab worked in collaboration with Amy Toth and Bryony Bonning on the interaction of nutritional stress and viral infection in honey bees, with the goal of better understanding the roles these factors play in honey bee declines.  He is broadly interested in insect behavior, physiology, and endocrinology, and has a strong background in ant behavioral physiology. Adam is a faculty member at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign.

M. Teresa Fernandez-Luna

Dr. Fernandez-Luna's work in the Bonning Lab involved identification and optimization of toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis with toxicity against the Asian citrus psyllid, which has had a devastating impact on the citrus industry as a vector of Huanglongbing or greening disease. Dr. Fernandez-Luna is now a Lecturer at Baylor University.

Bivina Flores-Escobar

Dr. Flores-Escobar's postdoctoral research in the Bonning Lab spanned the areas of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Pest Management. She holds PhD and MS degrees from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and a BS in Biology from the Universidad Autonoma de Puebla.

Liljana Georgievska

Liljana worked in the Bonning lab from 2008 to 2010 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. She worked on the aphid dicistrovirus, Rhopalosiphum padi virus, and on use of plant virus coat proteins for delivery of insect toxins in to the aphid hemocoel. She received her PhD from Wageningen UR. Dr. Georgievska is now a Project Manager at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

Sehiza Grosic

Sehiza Grosic worked in the areas of Plant Biology, Microbiology during her time as a Research Associate in the Bonning Lab.

Ya Guo

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Guo investigates interaction mechanisms between insect virus and host. She is currently working on honeybee virus infection mechanisms, with the goal of developing new protective strategies against virus infections. She previously studied the functional role of host vesicular trafficking related factors during the baculovirus infection. Her areas of expertise include insect virology and molecular biology. She obtained a PhD degree in Entomology from Northwest A&F University, China. During the PhD program, she spent two years at Cornell's Boyce Thompson institute (BTI) as a joint training PhD student. She also holds BS degree in Plant Protection from Northwest A&F University, China.

Robert Harrison

Bob Harrison worked in the Bonning lab as an Assistant Scientist from 2001 to 2003, and as a postdoctoral researcher prior to that. He worked on various aspects of baculovirus biology including the genetic enhancement of baculovirus insecticides. He left the lab for a research lead position at the USDA ARS in Beltsville, MD where he continues to work with insect viruses. 

Marley Iredale

Graduate Student

Dr. Marley Iredale is a veterinary pathologist working to expand her knowledge of honey bees and their pathogens.  She received her bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Ecology and veterinary degree from Washington State University.  She completed a one year medical internship at a private veterinary hospital in New York before her residency in Anatomic Pathology at the University of Florida, where she fell in love with honey bees. Her PhD work as part of the Entomology department aims to mitigate some of the challenges currently facing honey bees and apiarists.

Jaime Jimenez

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Jiménez researches plant virus transmission by insects. He holds a PhD in Entomology and Virology from the Spanish National Research Council (Madrid, Spain). His PhD addressed the mechanisms of transmission of several non-circulative viruses by their aphid vectors, as well as their competition and interference for the retention sites in the aphid mouthparts. As part of his PhD training, he performed a short-stay internship at the University of California Riverside, where he studied the delivery of phloem-limited virus particles by aphid vectors into the host plant. In the Bonning Lab, Dr. Jimé​nez​ worked as a postdoctoral researcher investigating the molecular interactions between persistently transmitted virus particles within the whitefly vector, then on peptides that bind the gut of hemipterans. He left the lab in late February, 2023 to take a position at the National Research Council Institute of Agricultural Science in Madrid.

Hailing Jin

Hailing conducted her Masters research in Genetics in the Bonning lab from 1999 to 2002. She worked on the polyhedral envelope protein of Rachiplusi ou multuple nucleopolyhedrovirus. She left the Bonning lab to direct the Microarray Facility at Iowa State University. 

Mariah Kemmerer

Lab Manager

Mariah Kemmerer works in the areas of insect virology and microbiology. She holds an MS from Iowa State University and a BS from Betany College, WV.

Pavan Kumar

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Kumar researched plant-insect interactions using molecular biology and analytical chemistry tools at Boyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca for 3 years prior to joining the Bonning Lab. Currently, Dr. Kumar is working on Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins-based management of Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP) and citrus greening disease. Citrus greening is the deadlies bacterial disease of citrus-family plants, and is vectored by ACP. Dr. Kumar’s research project focuses on the identification of Bt toxins that are effective against ACP and enhancing efficacy of the selected toxins by protein modification. His areas of expertise are molecular biology, protein engineering, RNAi, and plant-insect interactions. He holds a PhD in Molecular Ecology from the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and an MS in Biotechnology from Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, India.

Suyog Kuwar

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Kuwar worked on control of western corn root-worm by engineering Bt toxins in the Bonning lab. He employs various molecular biological techniques like phage display, cloning, protein expression using using insect cell lines, protein purification, protein modeling and modification. He has experience in the field of insect physiology, plant insect interactions, genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany and an MS in Biotechnology from the Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology at the University of Pune in Pune, India. Suyog passed away from COVID-19 in April, 2021.

Jeremy Kroemer

Jeremy Kroemer worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate for 2 years in the Bonning lab before leaving for a position at Monsanto Company in June 2013. Jeremy worked in collaboration with Dr. Bryce Falk at UC Davis on testing an infectious clone of a dicistrovirus, HoCV-1 that has potential for suppression of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis. Dr. Kroemer is the Agrochemical Discovery Lead at Bayer.

Huarong Li

Huarong Li worked in the Bonning lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate from 2004 to 2008. He worked on the physiological basis for the lack of toxicity of Bt toxins to aphids, and on genetic optimization of Bt toxins for enhanced binding and toxicity against aphids. Huarong left ISU in 2008 to work at Dow AgroSciences. Dr. Li is now with Quindao Kingagroot.

Shunji Li

Shunji Li worked as a graduate research assistant in the Bonning lab, where her work focused on insect viruses. Her thesis title is: Putative receptor for Israeli acute paralysis virus of the honey bee (Apis mellifera). She is now a PhD student at North Dakota University.

Lucas Linz

Luke Linz graduated with a PhD in Microbiology in May 2013 and left the Bonning lab in August 2013 to work at Douglas Scientific in Alexandia, MN. Luke's dissertation was on identification of the first plant virus receptor in the gut of the pea aphid vector, and on plant virus - aphid molecular interactions. Luke is now a Laboratory Operations Manager at Douglas Scientific.

Sijun Liu

Research Associate

Dr. Liu was a research associate scientist based at Iowa State University, where he worked on insect virus discovery using Next Generation Sequencing data for identification of viral sequences from transcriptome and from small RNA sequencing datasets. He has extensive experience with bioinformatics and with optimization of bioinformatics tools for virus discovery. His background is in Entomology, with particular emphasis on insect vectors of plant viral disease.

Zhiyan Liu

Zhiyan conducted her PhD research (Genetics) with Bonning from 2001 to 2007, characterizing the protein DmP29 in Drosophila melanogaster. Though initially identified as a binding protein of juvenile hormone esterase, the significance of this interaction remains unclear. Misexpression of DmP29 resulted in some very interesting fly phenotypes, reflective of a role of this protein in the JH pathway. See the Videos of Drosophila aberrant courtship behavior I, II and III taken by Dr. Zhiyan Liu. Following graduation, Zhiyan left for a postdoctoral research position at Harvard Medical School. Zhiyan's PhD dissertation: Subcellular Location and Function of a Putative Juvenile Hormone Esterase Binding Protein in Drosophila melanogaster. Dr. Liu is now a postdoctoral associate at Harvard Medical School.

Purushottam R Lomate

While in the Bonning lab, Dr. Lomate worked in the areas of molecular biology, biochemistry, and plant-insect interactions. Dr. Lomate is a Senior Scientist with Ajeet Seeds, India.

Tyasning Nusawardani

Tyas worked in the Bonning lab from 2002 to 2005 for her Masters degree in Entomology. She worked on the impact of a protease expressing recombinant baculovirus on the parasitoid, Cotesia marginiventris. She went on to get her Ph.D. from University of Kentucky under the direction of Dr. Bruce Webb, before returning to Iowa State University for postdoctoral research. 

Grace Ortgiesen

Graduate Student

Grace joined the Bonning lab in August 2020 as an incoming graduate student working on her MS degree in Entomology. Grace earned her BS in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She comes to the lab with extensive biotechnology research skills. She will be working to establish hemipteran cell lines and to test those lines for susceptibility to viruses. 

Narinder Pal

Narinder Pal worked in the Bonning lab from 2009 to 2012 as an Assistant Scientist. She worked on demonstration that a luteovirus coat protein can be used as a delivery agent for toxins that act with the aphid hemocoel. Narinder left in 2012 to join the lab of Dr. Julie Kuhlman. Dr. Pal is presently at the USDA ARS Plant Introduction station.

Suresh Pannerselvam

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Suresh worked in the Bonning lab from January 2018-February 2022. He constructed a pesticidal protein database (bpprc.org) and worked with a team that developed an improved classification algorithm. Suresh earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Science and Technology from Ajou University, South Korea, with a Brain Korea (BK21) Scholarship funded by the Korean government. He has also been awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India. Suresh now works in the BioHPC unit of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Bioinformatics.

Vijaya Paramasivan

Vijaya Paramasivan worked from 2012 to 2013 as an Assistant Scientist in the Bonning, before joining the lab of Dr. Thomas Baum in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University. Vijaya worked on a lepidopteran virus research project. Dr. Paramasivan is now an Assistant Scientist at ISU.

Michael Rausch

Michael Rausch's M.S. work focused on modifying Bt toxins for increased aphicidal activity, with potential application for improving aphid resistance of plants. He worked with Cry4Aa-S1, a well-documented Cry toxin used for mosquito control, and inserting cleavage sites for pea aphid cathepsin L and B proteases. Michael Raush is now a Research Associate at Evogene Ltd.

Zachary Regelin

Zach worked toward his Masters degree (2010) in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology under the direction of Drs. W. Allen Miller and Bryony Bonning. His thesis is entitled "Translation and replication of Rhopalosiphum padi virus RNA in a plant cellular environment". Zach is now a Research Scientist with Monsanto.

Nina Richtman

Nina worked in the Bonning lab from 2006 to 2009 for her Masters degree in Microbiology. She worked on the physiological basis for increased infection of black cutworms with a baculovirus (Agrotis ipsilon multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus) following ingestion of a Bt toxin (Cry1Fa2). She left the lab for a position at DuPont Pioneer in Johnston, Iowa. Nina's MS thesis: Physiological Impact of a Bacillus Thuringiensis Toxin on the Black Cutworm that Enhances Baculovirus Pathogenicity. Nina now works in Research & Development at Corteva.

David Sangren

David worked in the Bonning lab from 2004 to 2005 on the removal of transposon target sites from the baculovirus Autographa californca multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus fg25k gene. Transposon insertion into these target sites results in accumulation of a few polyhedra (fp) phenotype. It was later shown that removal of the sites delayed, but did not prevent accumulation of the fp phenotype. David subsequently received a Masters degree from Iowa State University and now works in the industrial sector. 

Jan Seibel

Jan Seibel worked with the Bonning lab as Coordinator of the Center for Arthropod Management Technologies from 2013-2018. She is presently the Program Coordinator for the Iowa State University Center for Multiphase Flow Research and Education.

Madasamy Shanmugavelu

Shan worked in the Bonning lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate from 1997 to 1999. He worked on screening of a pericardial cell phage display library for proteins that bound juvenile hormone esterase. This work provided the basis for analysis of the function of the protein DmP29 in the model insect, Drosophila melanogaster with funding from NSF.  Dr. Shanmugavelu then held a position as a Staff Scientist at Catalyst Biosciences. Shan passed away on August 30^th, 2020 at the age of 54.

Divya Sinha

Dr. Sinha's work in the Bonning lab identified gut receptors in aphids involved in luteoviruses uptake and examination of mechanisms of transcytosis across the insect gut. Both of these areas of research could provide novel tools for insect pest management. She is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Wisconson, Madison.

S. Sivakumar

Siva worked in the Bonning lab from 2005 to 2007 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He worked on baculovirus expression of the Pea enation mosaic virus coat protein for production of virus-like particles in insect cell lines, and on use of the coat protein to delivery GFP from the aphid gut into the hemocoel. He left the lab to work in the Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University. Dr. Sivakumar is now a Research Associate at ISU.

Wendy Sparks

Wendy Sparks worked toward her PhD in Genetics in the Bonning lab from 2005 to 2010. She worked on interaction of baculovirus occlusion-derived virus envelope proteins (ODV-E56 and ODV-E66) with the midgut microvilli of the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens. Wendy left the lab for a postdoctoral position at USDA ARS, Beltsville, MD.

Hailin Tang

Hailin worked toward his Masters thesis in Toxicology from 2004 to 2008 in the Bonning lab. He worked on the tissue specificity of a baculovirus-expressed, basement membrane-degrading protease in larvae of the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens. Hailin's MS thesis: Tissue specificity of a baculovirus-expressed, basement membrane-degrading protease in larvae of Heliothis virescens. Hailin is now a software developer for the FDA.

Diveena Vijayendran

Diveena's PhD focused on small non-coding RNA and the biological phenomenon of RNA interference. In her time in the Bonning lab, her aims were to (i) identify and characterize aphid viruses and (ii) characterize aphid micro RNAs in multiple aphid species. She employed a combination of bioinformatics and molecular biology on small RNA sequencing datasets to achieve these goals.

Sheng Yang

As a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Bonning lab, Dr. Yang worked in the areas of biochemistry and plant-insect interactions. Dr. Yang is a postdoc at ISU in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology.