{"id":167906,"date":"2018-10-29T14:31:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T18:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/?p=167906"},"modified":"2023-03-04T00:14:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T05:14:52","slug":"ants-for-antibiotics-omar-halawanis-research-featured-at-hunt-library-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/news\/ants-for-antibiotics-omar-halawanis-research-featured-at-hunt-library-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Ants for Antibiotics?: Omar Halawani Is on the Hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past 90 years, people have come to rely on an arsenal of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections that are increasingly becoming resistant to them. Where can we find other medicines to overcome the superbugs?<\/p>\n<p>For NC&#160;State University\u2019s Omar Halawani, the answer could be another type of bug \u2013 the ant. Like people, ants are social creatures. They live in tight quarters, where they would face intense pressure to develop antimicrobial chemicals to stop the spread of disease. After all, previous studies on other social insects such as thrips and bees showed that they do.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_167941\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-167941\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-167941 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Student scientist looks for ants near a tree on NC&#160;State's campus.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-950x633.jpg 950w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-460x307.jpg 460w, https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-230x153.jpg 230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-167941\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Omar Halawani looks for ants at NC&#160;State in hopes of learning more about the evolutionary adaptations of their societies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During his undergraduate studies in the Department of Applied Ecology, Halawani studied 20 ant species, finding that a tiny backyard ant species \u2013 the thief ant &#8212; produced the strongest antimicrobials. But he was surprised to find that 40 percent of the species did not produce any.<\/p>\n<p>That, of course, raises the questions of why \u2013 and how could it be? As a master\u2019s student, he\u2019s searching for answers with the help of two NC&#160;State ant experts \u2013 Rob Dunn, professor of applied ecology, and Adrian Smith, research assistant professor of biological sciences and head of the Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Lab at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. Halawani wants to gain a better understanding of the role that general antimicrobials have on ant societies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s interesting that some subset of ants is making these antibiotics and that could lead to the study of biologicals that could turn into medicine for us,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it would also be interesting to find out if they have alternative strategies to resist infection.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Our research addresses grand challenges &#8212; and overcomes them.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span>[button]<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/research\/\"><span>Learn more<\/span><\/a><span>[\/button]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"Over the past 90 years, people have come to rely on an arsenal of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections that are increasingly becoming resistant to them. Where can we find other medicines to overcome the superbugs?\r\n\r\nFor NC State University\u2019s Omar Halawani, the answer could be another type of bug \u2013 the ant. Like people, ants are social creatures. They live in tight quarters, where they would face intense pressure to develop antimicrobial chemicals to stop the spread of disease. After all, previous studies on other social insects such as thrips and bees showed that they do.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_167941\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]<img class=\"wp-image-167941 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2018\/10\/halawani-full-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Student scientist looks for ants near a tree on NC State's campus.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/> Omar Halawani looks for ants at NC State in hopes of learning more about the evolutionary adaptations of their societies.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nDuring his undergraduate studies in the Department of Applied Ecology, Halawani studied 20 ant species, finding that a tiny backyard ant species \u2013 the thief ant -- produced the strongest antimicrobials. But he was surprised to find that 40 percent of the species did not produce any.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, raises the questions of why \u2013 and how could it be? As a master\u2019s student, he\u2019s searching for answers with the help of two NC State ant experts \u2013 Rob Dunn, professor of applied ecology, and Adrian Smith, research assistant professor of biological sciences and head of the Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Lab at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. Halawani wants to gain a better understanding of the role that general antimicrobials have on ant societies.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s interesting that some subset of ants is making these antibiotics and that could lead to the study of biologicals that could turn into medicine for us,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it would also be interesting to find out if they have alternative strategies to resist infection.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Our research addresses grand challenges -- and overcomes them.<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<span>[button]<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/research\/\"><span>Learn more<\/span><\/a><span>[\/button]<\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do ant colonies defend themselves from harmful bacteria? NC State master\u2019s student Omar Halawani is looking for answers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":167911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1181,1163,1174],"tags":[1872,398],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"coauthors":[1651],"class_list":["post-167906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswire","category-research","category-students","tag-_from-newswire-collection-29","tag-department-of-applied-ecology"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167906"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281427,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167906\/revisions\/281427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167906"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=167906"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=167906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}