O'TooleLab

OToole Lab News

June 26, 2017

Kurt Dahlstrom, a recently graduated PhD student, just published an article in the Annual Review of Microbiology titled "A Symphony of Cyclases: Specificity in Diguanylate Cyclase Signaling".  Find it here.  Kurt discusses different mechanisms proposed to explain how microbes with 50+ proteins involved in making, breaking or dining c-di-GMP can achieve signaling specificity.

June 16, 2017

Guilia Orazi, a PhD student in the lab, was just appointed to the Microbiology and Molecular Pathogenesis Program (M2P2) training grant.  Congrats!  You can learn more about M2P2 at m2p2.org.



June 15, 2017

JB turned 100 this year (see the cover to the left).  Here a couple of quotes from the first issue:

“Sciences are not made but born….
“Bacteriology must henceforward be recognized as a broad and fundamental branch of science, coördinate with, rather than subordinate to, the other grand divisions of biology such as medicine, agriculture, zoölogy and botany….
“In its [microbiology's] further differentiation and development the present JOURNAL should be a powerful factor. May the event justify both our hope and our expectation.”
—W. T. Sedgwick, forward to the first issue of the Journal of Bacteriology, 1916
Check out an editorial describing the "Class Spotlights" that highlight some of the most impactful papers over the past century.

June 12, 2017

We just returned from the 17th Annual O'Toole Lab Retreat.
For the past few years we've held the retreat near the ocean in York, Maine.


Everyone in the lab presents for ~2hrs, then I meet 
with the presenter one-on-one, to talk about science and
do some career planning.  Everyone takes an IDP survey
to help prepare for this meeting.
Just a couple pics of the presentations below:


We have a couple of retreat traditions.  The first is a group
dinner at the house on the first night - this year we made sushi.
As you can see below, people loved it.


 We also go out for seafood (especially lobster) the second night.
Our favorite outdoor lobster pound was closed but we found
a fun new restaurant.

 

June 11, 2017

Well, I took the plunge and set up a lab Twitter account.  If the lab blog is not your thing, you can follow lab news and publications here: @GeiselBiofilm

I'll still post news here, and you can find us through twitter too.

June 02, 2017

 David Giacalone, a research technician in the lab, spent the day at his alma mater, New England College, teaching a workshop to NEC students who will be working in the lab with Professor Lori Bergeron at NEC this summer.  The workshop covered PCR, primer design, restriction digestion, and cloning techniques such as yeast cloning and the more classic ligation reaction-based cloning. The group then worked on cloning a gene involved in c-di-GMP metabolism from Pseudomonas fluorescens.  On the left, the top photo shows the students at work and the bottom a couple of the students in the workshop plus David (far right).  Most of the students were new to lab work, so the workshop will really help to get them going for the summer.