February 21, 2016

We recently published a collaborative paper with Ramin Golestanian's group, headed up by Rachel Bennett, along with Gerard Wong, Fitnat Yildiz and Ken Nealson.  The lab's first paper in a physics journal - the Journal of the Royal Society - Interface.  Our part of the work focused on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and particular, modeling what might contribute to the transition between "reversible" polar and "irreversible" horizontal attachment.  These are the very earliest events in biofilm formation.  The findings from this manuscript, relevant to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is that the degree of flagellar attachment and the rotational torque make key contributions to these early behaviors.  The figure here shows the predicted movement of a cell attached by the tip of the flagellum.  We are developing the tools to explicitly test this model.

February 02, 2016

In my second Classic Spotlight, celebrating the 100th birthday of the Journal of Bacteriology, I highlight a couple of papers that launch the field of Quorum Sensing.  The piece is titled "Classic Spotlight: Quorum Sensing and the Multicellular Life of Unicellular Organisms", and you can find it here.