O'TooleLab

OToole Lab News

June 28, 2013

Megan Richman is spending the summer working in the lab.  She is an undergraduate at Claremont McKenna College with an interest in cystic fibrosis.  She is working with Dae-Gon Ha, a PhD student in the lab, studying c-di-GMP regulation of bacterial behaviors in the Cf pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

June 27, 2013

Jon Miller is a Dartmouth College undergraduate and Presidential Scholar, who just joined the lab.  He's working with graduate student Gary Heussler studying the interactions of phage DMS3 and the CRISPR/cas locus of P. aeruginosa, and the impact of this interaction on biofilm formation.

June 20, 2013

A couple of pieces of news today.

Chris Rees (top), a medical student working in the lab, was just accepted into the MD/PhD program here at the Geisel School of Medicine, and will be rotating in the lab this summer.  

Brian White (bottom) is a Dartmouth College undergraduate and Presidential Scholar, who just joined the lab.  He'll be working with graduate student Kurt Dahlstrom studying biofilm formation and c-di-GMP regulation in Pseudomonas fluorescens.


June 19, 2013

Chelsea Boyd recently attended the Boston Bacterial Meeting at the Harvard University, where she presented a poster on her work studying biofilm formation titled "Structural features of the Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilm adhesin LapA required for biofilm formation and cell surface localization." Chelsea won an award for having the best poster out of 70 other poster presenters during the Saturday session of the meeting.   

June 17, 2013




Kurt Dahlstrom, a PhD student in the lab, recently attended the Wind River Conference on Prokaryotic Biology on a travel grant awarded to him by the Wind River Committee. The conference was held at Aspen lodge in Estes Park, Colorado. Kurt gave a talk on his work in addition to presenting a poster (top left), though he was a bit late for the poster session after having gotten lost on a hike in the mountains (offending mountain, lower left). Despite his brush with nature, he was one of two conference attendees awarded best poster, and as a prize, he received the hat he is wearing!


June 13, 2013

We have just returned from the 13th annual O'Toole Lab Retreat.  
This year, as we have the past 3 years, the retreat was 3 days/2 nights on the Maine coast
in York Beach.  Every lab member presented their studies over the past
year for ~2 hrs.  It was really a terrific opportunity to talk science.

Here are a couple of people presenting, using markers and big
"stickies".  All the presentations are in this "chalk talk" format.




We also had time for fun.  The first night we had seafood paella.

 On the second night, we had dinner at a local lobster pier.

Here is a shot from the pier down a classic tidal creek.
And below a lab photo, and the lab getting ready to dig 
into their lobsters.



June 10, 2013

Chelsea Boyd, a student in the lab who recently defended her Ph.D., was selected as the Class Day speaker for the graduation ceremony for the Geisel School of Medicine.  She had the opportunity to represent all of the PhD students graduating with the Class of 2013.



June 03, 2013

We have a new member of the lab.  Jarrod Smith has joined today as a Ph.D. student.  He comes to us from the University of Georgia, and managed to survive his first winter in Hanover, and via a stint in a rock band!  Welcome.