April 24, 2014

Gary Heussler, a PhD student in the lab, served an a mentor for a morning for Hayley, a high school student from Inter Lakes High School in Meredith, NH recently.  She visited the lab to experience what its like being a biological researcher at a large institution. Hayley's guidance counselor set up this visit through Sara Riordan at the Dartmouth Science Outreach Office, and Hayley got first hand experience examining bacterial biofilm development using fluorescent microscopy. Hayley will be attending Drexel University in the fall of 2014 and hopes to pursue a degree in bio-medical engineering. 

April 18, 2014

In a collaborative effort with Sharklet Technologies, we recently published a paper entitled "Micro-patterned surfaces reduce bacterial colonization and biofilm formation in vitro: Potential for enhancing endotracheal tube designs" - see it here.  This paper reports the use of specifically patterned surfaces (like the one shown on the left) in reducing bacterial biofilms, which has potential beneficial impacts for the production of next generation medical implants more resistant to colonization.

April 13, 2014

Dae-Gon Ha, a student in my lab, defended his PhD on Thursday.  Here are a couple of pictures from his defense.  His work focuses on the role of c-di-GMP signalling in swarming and biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa.  His outside examiner was Rasika Harshey from the University of Texas-Austin.

April 07, 2014

Gary Heussler, a PhD student in the lab participated in Science Day this weekend.  Gary worked with kids from local schools ages 7-13.  He explained how in nature, colonization of some bacteria on a plant cause the plant to frost at temperatures warmer than usually required. This frosting cracks the surface of the plant, allowing the bacteria to infect and subsequently eat the plant!  He performed a demonstration of this "ice nucleation" in the lab as a demonstration.

April 01, 2014

Gary Huesler, a PhD student in the lab is participating in Science Day at Dartmouth.  Check out the link - Gary is doing the Ice Nucleation project.

Chris Earl is joining the lab for 2 months as a visiting scientist.  He is a PhD student from the University of Dundee, working with Robert Ryan.  Welcome!