Edouard Bessette

Edouard Bessette

PhD Student

My name is Edouard (LinkedIn) and I am a PhD student within the Insect Doctors program. I am studying microsporidia and other protist parasites in commercially reared insects.

Website of the Insect Doctors program

Current research

There is currently little data on microsporidia and protists infecting reared insects, and few tools to identify new species. My current resaearch aims to provide new genomic data regarding entomopathogenic protists, where there is a clear lack of information regarding some protist parasites (such as gregarines, amoeba…).

I also study the effect of gregarine parasite on its host Acheta domesticus (the house cricket), by studying different life traits of uninfected/infected hosts.

Deliverables of the current project:

  • A spreadsheet of all microsporidia and protists from data mining and lab investigation, alongside the primers used for detection, made available as a database.
  • A manuscript on protists and microsporidia diversity found within insect hosts and on the risk analysis of microsporidia and protist infection within reared insect species.

Primary fields of research

  • Entomology
  • Parasitic Diseases
  • Parasitology
  • Molecular Diagnostics
  • Disease Ecology
  • Protist

Selected publications

  1. Published

    Protists in the Insect Rearing Industry: Benign Passengers or Potential Risk?

    Bessette, Edouard & Williams, B., 2022, In: Insects. 13, 5, 32 p., 482.

    Research output: Contribution to journalReviewpeer-review

ID: 247675319