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About
Audrey Lartigue is a structural biologist whose work has illuminated the molecular architecture of insect chemosensation. Her research centers on pheromone-binding proteins (PBPs)—small helical proteins that shuttle chemical signals through the sensillar lymph to olfactory receptors, enabling insects to detect mates, food, and danger. Lartigue’s major contributions lie in the crystallization and preliminary structural characterization of PBPs from diverse species, providing the first three-dimensional blueprints for understanding how these proteins recognize and transport pheromones. Her landmark study on the honeybee *Apis mellifera* PBP (Amel-ASP1), cited 20 times, established a foundation for decoding the molecular basis of social insect communication. She extended this approach to the cockroach *Leucophaea maderae* (LmaPBP), demonstrating that the PBP structural fold is conserved across evolutionary distant insect orders. By optimizing crystal growth from nanodrops, Lartigue overcame a key bottleneck in protein crystallography, enabling high-resolution studies of these delicate signaling molecules. Her work has profound implications for designing environmentally friendly pest control agents that disrupt insect chemical communication, and it continues to inspire researchers exploring the sensory biology of insects.
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