What Bees Can Tell Us About Parkinson's Disease

Campus, Arches, Students

Adam Schmidt ’23 dives into the mysteries of Parkinson’s disease with the help of bees

On the rooftop of Thompson Hall, Adam Schmidt ’23 emerges in a white jumpsuit, a wide-brimmed hat with a mesh face veil, and thick protective gloves. Carefully, he approaches the hive, a 5-foot-tall stack of wooden boxes located behind a greenhouse near the roof’s edge. Schmidt, a molecular and cellular biology major, isn’t interested in these bees for their honey—he wants to study their brains in an attempt to understand the progression of neurodegenerative diseases in humans.

“The bees can be a little bit fussy,” Schmidt says. “But with my gloves and my beekeeper suit, I feel unstoppable.”

After collecting 30 bees, he takes them downstairs, into the Hannaford lab. Schmidt’s project looks at the effects of Paraquat, an herbicide, on western honeybees. Paraquat is known to cause Parkinson’s disease in humans, but exactly how is unknown, so Schmidt and his lab partners are trying to model the early stages of the disease in smaller insect brains.

Adam Schmidt ’23

“Humans have about 86 billion neurons in their brains,” Schmidt explains. “Bees only have about a million, so we’re able to isolate more effectively the areas where we see cells dying. If our modeling is successful, then we’ll be able to apply different treatments and begin to understand how to apply that to larger animals and, eventually, to humans.”

After bringing the bees into the lab, Schmidt mounts them individually in a tiny apparatus to hold them still. He sprays a lavender scent toward them, rewards them with sugar water, and tracks how long it takes each bee to learn to associate the odor with the reward. Then, he compares that behavior with those that have been treated with different concentrations of herbicide, to measure any cognitive decline.

Adam Schmidt ’23, in a white beekeeper suit, stands next to stacked green and yellow boxes containing thousands of bees

A heavily gloved hand holds a small clear tube with a bee specimen inside

Closeup of a bee in a tube-like apparatus

Closeup of a hand holding a circular disc with a thick, clear liquid, while a second hand carefully places a tiny specimen into the liquid with delicate tweezers

After a few days of learning trials, Schmidt dissects the bees’ brains, stains the dead cells with antibodies, and looks at them under the large confocal microscope in Thompson’s lower level. The stains fluoresce, helping Schmidt identify the brain areas that are most affected. Over the summer, he tested around 200 bees.

“The incredible thing about using bees for this kind of research is that there can be up to 10,000 bees in a hive. So you can collect a tremendous amount of data from a single hive.”

Schmidt has aspirations of going to medical school. While he hopes his contributions to the project will eventually lead to better treatments for Parkinson’s, even if no link is established, he believes that the research the lab is doing may also help scientists better understand the ecological toll of herbicides on honeybees.

Closeup of a bee in a tube-like apparatus on the left, while a delicate tool is in frame on the left

A researcher holds a plastic test tube in one hand while extracting a tiny specimen with tweezers held in the other

A research carefully places a small specimen on a circular microscope slide under a dim light

Adam Schmidt ’23 smiles in his white beekeeper suit in the roof of Thompson Hall

“I think everybody doing this kind of research wants to be able to cure a disease. But the project is still young, so my only hope is that we can successfully model the disease in bees. Once we can see how the neural connections in the memory and learning centers are affected, we’ll be in a better position to tackle the treatment side.”

Working in Professor Susannah Hannaford’s lab has given Schmidt increased confidence in his research skills, deepened his interest in neurology, and given him valuable experience to bolster his resume.

“I’m doing research at this small university that my friends at bigger schools wouldn’t even dream of getting to do in graduate school,” Schmidt says. “I’m getting to do actual lab work and research as opposed to just observing or cleaning petri dishes. The hands-on experience is fantastic.”

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