August 31, 2016

Gary Heussler, a recently graduated PhD student, had his last paper accepted the last day in the lab.  Excellent timing!  His work described a new biofilm-based assay for detecting the insertion of new spacer sequences in the type I-F CRISPR system of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.  Using this new assay we were able to assess the requirements needed for new spacer insertion in an endogenous system with no mutations or over-expression required.  The system he used is summarized in Figure 2 of the paper, which is shown here.  Check out the paper here.

August 23, 2016

Gary Heussler, who received his PhD this spring, left yesterday to UCSD to work with Rachel Dutton on the microbiome of cheese.  Check out Gary and all the alumni from the lab here!

August 17, 2016

I just returned from the closing dinner of the Microbial Diversity course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.  This is the 3rd summer in which I served as on of the instructors.  On the left (top) is a group picture with everyone wearing their T-shirts.  The lower left is a fun picture with the co-Directors of the course, Jared Leadbetter and Dianne Newman.  It is a terrific (and intense) course.  Check it out here.