Elucidating sloth-microbe symbioses

Project Description: We study the microbes associated with sloths using samples acquired from fieldwork in Costa Rica. The student(s) associated with this project will help cultivate/maintain cultures of sloth-derived microbes (particularly algae, cyanobacteria, and fungi), and also in helping with DNA sequencing projects aimed at characterizing the sloth microbiome. I have been in Germany in 2021 (at https://www.idiv.de) pursuing collaborations related to this project and the student(s) involved will help plow that collaborative work forward with an international cast of colleagues.

Desired Student Qualifications: Student should be curious, hardworking, organized, mature, and responsible/reliable. We need a student we can trust to learn what they need to this Spring 2019 semester, and also be able to continue through this summer to maintain cultures and keep the project moving forward. Student will be trained, but should have inclinations for independence. Student should be interested in learning new things and not be afraid to do so.

Project Timeline: 1 yr (possible to extend for longer); 1+ commitments especially welcomed.

Duties of Student Researcher: Help conduct behavioral scent studies with arthropods (fruit flies, beetles) using sloth algae. Biochemical extractions of natural products from algal cultures. Maintain and isolate cultures of microbes from sloth hair and skin. Help isolate DNA and participate in sequencing projects as needed. Help analyze data, including learning/doing bioinformatics.

Last Updated on 2021-09-24 02:24:34

Fungal-algal mutualisms/symbiosis in nature and in the lab

Project Description: As part of Dr. Hom's NSF CAREER project we welcome a hard-working, driven, mature, undergraduate lab assistant to work closely with members of our lab on a project on the evolution of fungal-algal mutualisms/symbiosis. Details on the sort of concepts and related approaches we use are desmonstrated in a pre-print that we have submitted for publication (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.07.451547v1 -- do not get scared if you don't understand a lot of this complex/dense paper! You will learn!). Responsibilities will include aseptic media and experiment preparation, culture maintenance, help in constructing automatic culturing devices, and running experiments. Students with programming and device (e.g. Raspberry pi) tinkering are especially invited to work on this transdisciplinary project. Students also interested in metabolic network modeling are also welcome to join in to work with Australian collaborators at CSIRO on this aspect of the work.

Desired Student Qualifications: Motivated and mature; hardworking; reliable and responsible; organized and a person who likes record keeping; good with basic math/algebra; intellectually curious. Programming and experience tinkering with electronics are welcome qualifications. We value out-of-the-box thinking, rigorous science, and understanding how things work; you should too. We value grit and are vested in helping students do their best and invest in their future. You should be hungry to learn and improve as a student scholar.

Project Timeline: 1 yr (possible to extend for longer); 1+ commitments especially welcomed.

Duties of Student Researcher: Negotiable, and depends on student background, interests, and mutual fit. Students will be involved in transferring/maintaining cultures of fungi and algae, and performing co-culturing growth experiments assays. Student will also work/help with setting up an automatic culturing/monitoring system and running the first pilot coculturing experiments. Depending on student experience, help with design, assembling, programming, and fine-tuning of culturing apparatus is a possibility; this may involve 3D printing components. We are also interested in gene expression microscopic studies of these mutualisms/symbioses and computational metabolic modeling of our systems. You are invited to take part and help drive any focused aspect of this umbrella project forward, details of which can be discussed.

Last Updated on 2021-09-24 02:24:39

Open, student-generated projects

Project Description: We have a diverse portfolio of ongoing projects in the lab motivated by both broad and specific questions about how microbial communities work to transform our world at several scales. If you have a project idea that fits within our broader interests, you are welcome to talk with Dr. Hom about it and defining a do-able project within the scope of an Honors Thesis. Not represented in the advertised projects here are interests in the role of microbes in society, agriculture, biogeochemistry, terraformation, energy production, marine systems, and waste remediation/valorization.

Desired Student Qualifications: Curiosity-driven. Demonstrated record of being focused, organized, and a do-er. Gritty--realistic but hopeful. If you want to discover something new, these are traits that will be required.

Project Timeline: 1+ years (to be defined collaboratively with Dr. Hom)

Duties of Student Researcher: To be determined collaboratively with Dr. Hom

Last Updated on 2021-09-24 02:36:06

Taste tests and culturing of fermented beverages (kefir)

Project Description: We have an interdisciplinary project exploring the microbiology and taste/sensory profiles of a class of fermented probiotic beverages known as "kefir." There are two types: water kefir and milk kefir, made using sugar water and milk respectively. Water kefir is milder and "less funky" than kombucha tea, and milk kefir is like a yogurt drink. We seek to develop these fermented beverages into a system for understanding microbial ecology and the properties of their real-world, output (taste and texture). We collaborate with colleagues in Nutrition and Hospitality, and hope to do taste/sensory tests on our ferments, even as we work to understand the microbial composition of these systems.

Desired Student Qualifications: We are in search for a responsible, observant, and careful student who is interested in designing and preparing these fermented probiotic beverages using heirloom cultures that we possess in the lab. Person right for this work should enjoy tasting things and have an open mind about trying and creating new things, as well as be interested in interacting with people. We would like to run taste/sensory tests, which the student will also help design and implement with our campus community. We also have sub-projects related to the elucidation of these microbes using next-generation sequencing, and students interested in microbiology/ecology and wanting to learn bioinformatics and analyzing that sort of data are welcome.

Project Timeline: 1 yr (possible to extend for longer); 1+ commitments especially welcomed.

Duties of Student Researcher: Maintain food-grade/edible cultures in Lenoir Hall, with matching paired lab cultures in Shoemaker Hall. Design and deploy campus-wide taste tests. Analyze data and improve experimental designs. Assist with characterization of microbes in these fermented beverages (some via DNA sequencing technology). Alternatively/in addition, students interested in microbiology may assist in efforts to isolate and characterize the microbes from these cultures and perform pairing/coculturing experiments with selected isolates as we seek to understand the microbial community through dissection of component interactions.

Last Updated on 2021-09-24 02:24:45