From flies to humans, many components of the innate immune system have been conserved
during metazoan evolution. This foundational observation has allowed us to develop …

A central problem in infection biology is understanding why two individuals exposed to
identical infections have different outcomes. We have developed an experimental model …

Genes of the immune system often evolve rapidly and adaptively, presumably driven by
antagonistic interactions with pathogens [1–4]. Those genes encoding secreted …

Understanding the rate of evolutionary change and the genetic architecture that facilitates
rapid adaptation is a current challenge in evolutionary biology. Comparative studies show …

Male and female animals exhibit differences in infection outcomes. One possible source of
sexually dimorphic immunity is the sex-specific costs of immune activity or pathology, but …

Translation of hundreds of small ORFs (smORFs) of less than 100 amino acids has recently
been revealed in vertebrates and Drosophila. Some of these peptides have essential and …

Even when successfully surviving an infection, a host often fails to eliminate a pathogen
completely and may sustain substantial pathogen burden for the remainder of its life. Using …

Defence against pathogenic infection can take two forms: resistance and tolerance.
Resistance is the ability of the host to limit a pathogen burden, whereas tolerance is the …

The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen, 1830) has been established as a key model
organism thanks in part to their considerable biological similarity to mammals and an …

In many species, female reproductive investment comes at a cost to immunity and resistance
to infection. Mated Drosophila melanogaster females are more susceptible to bacterial …