Each year, blowfly infestation of sheep wool, skin and tissue, known as flystrike, results in $280 million losses to the wool industry, not to mention the suffering experienced by the animals themselves.
The process of DNA sequencing chops up bacterial DNA into millions of small fragments. Like the remains of Humpty Dumpty, the challenge is then to put all the fragments back together again.
Professor Phil Batterham, researcher at the Bio21 Institute, is part of an international effort to decode the Australian sheep blowfly genome, adding ammunition to the battle against one of the nation’s most insidious pests.