Gatehouse is Professor of Invertebrate Molecular Biology at Newcastle University, is on the Council of the International Congress of Entomology, and is the Director of Expertise for BioEconomy.
She has researched compounds for novel biopesticides which may have less or no impact on non target organisms such as pollinators and predators.
Her team tested the Hv1a/GNA fusion protein as a potential biopesticide, the compound combines a venom toxin of an Australian funnel web spider and snowdrop lectin and they found it did not have detrimental effects on honeybees.
She tested gene edited rice plants which suppress the production of serotonin with an inactivated CYP71A1 gene, the plants were more resistant to the brown plant-hopper and the striped stem borer.
[4] Her team identified that the compound limonene makes Marigold plants good companion plants with tomatoes in enclosed glasshouse conditions, as they repel the insect pest the glasshouse whitefly.