Airborne Biodiversity Genomics – global-scale nature, wildlife and pathogen monitoring
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Dr. David Duffy presents airborne biodiversity genomics, an emerging technology that recovers DNA from air, water, and sand to monitor wildlife, pathogens, and human populations without direct observation. This non-invasive approach enables rapid, large-scale biodiversity assessments and has applications in conservation, disease surveillance, and water quality monitoring.
Key takeaways
- Environmental DNA (eDNA) technology recovers genetic material shed by organisms into the environment, allowing scientists to identify thousands of species from a single air, water, or sand sample in under 24 hours.
- The approach simultaneously detects wildlife diversity, human ancestry, disease pathogens, allergens, and invasive species, providing rich data for conservation decisions and public health interventions.
- Handheld portable DNA sequencing devices now enable field-based analysis, making global-scale biodiversity monitoring feasible in remote and difficult-to-reach locations.
- Applications include tracking migratory sea turtles across international boundaries, identifying disease vectors like mosquitoes and their pesticide resistance, and pinpointing wastewater contamination sources.
- Ethical considerations around human genetic privacy require careful regulation of when and where human eDNA research should be conducted.
About David DuffyDr. David Duffy leads research at the University of Florida's Whitney Laboratory and Sea Turtle Hospital, where he studies environmental DNA genomics and sea turtle diseases.
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Program: Airborne Biodiversity Genomics – global-scale nature, wildlife and pathogen monitoring
Speaker: David Duffy
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
The convergence of advanced genomic sequencing technologies and innovative environmental sampling approaches are enabling discovery at whole biome scales and across the tree of life, from microbes to mammals. These technologies are taking us ever closer to the realization of the lifeform detection capabilities of the fictional Star Trek tricorder. Environmental DNA (eDNA) comprises trace amounts of genetic material shed by organisms as they traverse and interact with their environment. Genetic material can enter the environment from shed skin, hair, scales, bodily fluids, defecation and even with every exhaled breath. This genetic material can now be recovered from the air, water or sediment samples, and can reveal a wealth of information about a region’s inhabitants, from sea turtles to bobcats (lynx), humans to mosquitoes, and even microbes and allergens.
These ultra-rich eDNA genomics datasets can be used to quantify the genetic material from each organism and understand what species are present, their origin, and their genetic diversity. These emerging technologies enable the simultaneous study of viral to vertebrate genomes, and unlock their genetic secrets for a wide variety of downstream applications. These include (1) biodiversity monitoring, (2) flora, fauna and microbial population genetics, (3) pathogen and disease vector genomic surveillance, (4) allergen and narcotic surveillance, (5) antimicrobial resistance surveillance, (6) ecosystem-scale genome mining for drug discovery, and (7) human genetic diversity, disease risk, and genetic ancestry analyses from airborne DNA. This talk will introduce recent advances in airborne DNA genomics, discuss their implications, and explore their promise for diverse fields such as endangered wildlife conservation, genetic diversity and drug discovery, and pathogen and disease vector surveillance.
David Duffy is the Condron Family Endowed Associate Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience & Sea Turtle Hospital, with over 20 years' experience in molecular, genomics, wildlife conservation, cancer and environmental studies. His team conducts laboratory-based, clinical, computational and field-based research. His lab focuses on threats to sea turtles and biodiversity, including plastic ingestion and a sea turtle cancer induced by a pathogen and pollution exposure. The lab also works on the development of advanced eDNA technologies for wildlife, biodiversity, pollution and pathogen monitoring. This includes eDNA analysis from air, sediment and aquatic (freshwater, seawater, estuarine) sources. They also pioneer human eDNA applications.
Members and guests, please welcome David Duffy!
To learn more, go to:
To learn more about Dr Duffy's work, go to:
https://www.whitney.ufl.edu/people/current-research-faculty/david-duffy-phd/
Science media article on airborne eDNA:
https://www.science.org/content/article/dna-captured-air-could-track-wildlife-invasive-species-and-humans
Sea Turtle Hospital webpage:
https://www.whitney.ufl.edu/conservation--sea-turtle-hospital/about-the-sea-turtle-hospital/
Paper on airborne DNA genomics: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02711-w
Paper on human eDNA and ethics: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02056-2
Media article on airborne eDNA:
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0610/1518005-dublin-air-quality-dna-genetics-monitoring/
Media article on airborne DNA genomics: https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2025/06/26/scanning-the-air-for-life/
Press release on airborne DNA genomics: https://news.ufl.edu/2025/06/air-environmental-dna/
Human eDNA potential and ethical implications news story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/science/environmental-dna-ethics-privacy.html
Human eDNA potential and ethical implications news story: https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/15/health/human-dna-captured-from-air-scn/index.html
USA Today news story on eDNA capabilities:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/08/26/staggering-dna-advances-could-improve-response-climate-change/10000538002/
Sea turtle cancers BBC television segment:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/av/63125522
Sea turtle plastic ingestion news segment:
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/life/animals/uf-scientists-collect-sea-turtle-dna-from-sand-water/77-ac1c0331-032a-4148-a10f-f4906a2405dc
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