March 28, 2013

Alex Gifford, a pulmonologist, physician-scientist and close collaborator with my group was selected to participate in a week long clinical research training program through the Dartmouth Synergy Program.  Alex has worked with our group studying the role of iron in the health of cystic fibrosis patients, as well as microbiome studies analyzing the microbial communities in CF patients. Congrats!

March 22, 2013

Gary Heussler, a PhD student in the lab, worked with two other  students in our MCB graduate program to demonstrating use of light microscopy to 4th and 5th grade school teachers from around the Upper Valley of NH and VT.  The demonstration was part of a larger workshop entitled “Cells and Light Microscopy” co-hosted by the Montshire Museum of Science and Dartmouth College. Gary and his fellow grad students used their own samples (Drosophila oocytes, Ashbya cells, and live Pseudomonas fluorescens) as well as other samples (cheek cells and pond water) to demonstrate different types of microscopy including DIC, phase contrast, and fluorescent microscopy, thus allowing the teachers to get comfortable using microscopes. Long-term, the goal is to incorporate the use of these instruments in the middle school science courses.

March 21, 2013

The lab was recently awarded a grant from the Human Frontiers in Science Program (HFSP, http://www.hfsp.org/).  This unusual grant includes a collaborative team from three different countries, and includes myself, a theoretical physicist, a biophysicist and a researcher working on bacterial motors doing single motor studies.  Our goal is to understand c-di-GMP signalling in the earliest events in biofilm formation doing single cell and single molecule level experimentation with a strong theoretical component.

March 19, 2013

March 13, 2013

We recently published a collaborative paper with Federico Sisti (top) studying c-di-GMP signalling in Bordetella.  Federico is a professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina, but he spent several month visiting the lab last fall.  Working with Dae-Gon Ha (bottom), a Ph.D, student in the lab, Federico uded genetic and biochemical approaches to provide the firat evidence for  ci-di-GMP signalling in Bordetella bronchiseptica.  B. bronchiseptica is a cousin of the well-known pathogen B. pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough.

March 05, 2013

One of the programs I participate in is the NH-INBRE (http://nhinbre.org/).  This NIH funded program pairs faculty at research universities with faculty at small colleges around NH to help the colleges develop research programs.  Students from the colleges also come to Dartmouth for the summer to work in research labs.  I help mentor Lori Bergeron, a faculty member at New England College who works on biofilm formation and metal-dependent gene regulation by the oral microbe Actinomyces naeslundii.  She recently took 9 of her undergraduate students to an undergraduate conference this weekend at University of New England, where one of their A. naeslundii posters won "top ten poster" award.