The endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins) are struggling on the New Zealand mainland, and things only got tougher for them last year with the discovery of a new disease affecting the lungs of chicks.
Sick hoiho chicks found in the field are uplifted to The Wildlife Hospital, Dunedin. Photo: Janelle Wierenga
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Dr Janelle Wierenga is working on the puzzle of what might be behind this disease, as well as investigating diphtheritic stomatitis, an illness that causes sores in the mouths of chicks and disrupts their feeding.
Wierenga is using genome sequencing to analyse samples taken from healthy and diseased hoiho chicks with the hope of discovering whether the illnesses are being caused by viruses, fungi, bacteria or something else. To do this she extracts RNA from swabs taken from living birds, or tissue samples from dead chicks and then compares them to databases of known sequences.
Ultimately, she is hoping to identify the culprits so preventative measures or cures can be found to help these penguin chicks.
Dr Janelle Wierenga. Photo: RNZ
To learn more
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Listen to the full episode on Our Changing World.
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For a refresher on the relationship between DNA and RNA in living things, have a listen to A new way to make vaccines.
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Listen to Virus 101 with Alison Ballance and Professor Kurt Krause from April 2020.