Microbiology

Diverse Applications

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Diverse Applications

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Alex Grossman, who recently earned his PhD in microbiology, had originally started his journey in higher education with the goal of studying ecology. After completing the NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in the UT Department of Microbiology, however, he discovered a passion for microbiology. 

“Ninety to 99% of all the biology on planet Earth is microbiology, and I would say that’s where my passion and fascination come from,” Grossman said. 

It was how he decided to come to UT to pursue his PhD, and brought the experience full-circle when he mentored an REU student during his PhD. 

“I got to be, for someone else, the source of inspiration that I had received myself when I was an REU student” he said. “I enjoyed that opportunity to nurture an interest in science.” 

Grossman completed his PhD work in Professor Heidi Goodrich-Blair’s lab, who also serves as head of the microbiology department. 

“In my first year it certainly was intimidating to have my research mentor be the department head. It was a bit more hands-off, but I really appreciated getting to be more independent,” Grossman said. “Despite how busy she was, she always went out of her way to always be there for the students, myself and others included.” 

Grossman researched microbe-host symbiosis, using nematodes as the experimental system. Nematodes were ideal to work with because of how small and simple a host they are. Ultimately, the work led him to discovering and characterizing a novel gram-negative bacterial secretion system (Type-XI secretion system). 

“The system is a mechanism the bacteria have evolved for secreting protein in the environment, either to survive off the host or to interact with the host by binding host antigens, immune factors, and the like.” 

What is special about this secretion system is that it is found in the microbiome of humans and other organisms as well. It is exciting to think that a bacterial system discovered in nematodes has implications in human medicine, and certainly speaks to the diverse applications of microbiology. 

Grossman explains that beyond the molecular and bench work he gets to do in the lab, he quite enjoys the bioinformatic and coding work he gets to do as a part of the analysis. 

“There’s something exhilarating about this experiment that took weeks of work and now there’s an excel sheet with a gigabyte of random numbers and you need to find the story and the logic in it.” 

Grossman was inspired to pursue microbiology because of how vastly relevant it is to so many different processes of life overall. Looking forward to his post-doc work, he is excited to seek out new biology and systems to study, while deepening his passion for bioinformatics and lab work.

A Gut Feeling

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A Gut Feeling

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Naomi Gilbert started out as an undergraduate student at James Madison University, where she initially found her passion for environmental microbiology. Inspired by her research mentor there, she decided to come to UT for her PhD.

As a part of Professor Steven Wilhelm’s lab, Gilbert was involved in collecting sampling microbes in the open ocean, then using a combination of molecular and computational tools to characterize what microbes are in the ocean, what they do, and how nutrients impact them.

“In undergrad I did some freshwater cyanobacteria work, but Dr. Wilhelm told me about this project that had to do with marine microbiology, and that’s what got me: the prospect of flying to another country and field sampling the open ocean,” said Gilbert, who specialized in examining the phytoplankton, viruses, and bacteria that infect microbes in the ocean to understand how they impact the ocean’s nutrient cycle, and in turn the global carbon cycle.

“Primary productivity is one of the main mechanisms by which the ocean actually takes up carbon dioxide and exports it to the deep ocean,” Gilbert said. “My contribution was showing that there’s certain nutrients limiting the growth of microbes in the southern ocean, which contribute to primary productivity”

When she first started out, what fascinated Gilbert about the work she was getting to do was the computational analysis and integration of travel – also known as field work, which has extensive preparations.

“The travel might be three weeks total, but months before we’re planning the logistics of all of this,” Gilbert said. “It’s time consuming and tedious, but it was nice to have something to look forward to while you were analyzing your data.”

Gilbert began her undergraduate degree with the goal of pursuing medicine, but shifted gears when she discovered her true passion.

“Not restricting yourself is important. If you get that gut feeling that you want to change course to something you’re more passionate about, it’s better to commit sooner rather than later,” Gilbert said.

Environmental microbiology remains a major interest for Gilbert, and she hopes to continue studying it in her postgraduate work. She thoroughly enjoys the computational analyses she gets to do and hopes to move from the field-based research she is used to into the realm of culture-based lab work.

The Future is Here

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The Future is Here

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Dear Friends, Alumni, and Current Members of the UT Department of Microbiology: 

In this edition of our annual newsletter, we focus our attention on what makes our department great: the people of its past, present, and future who comprise a community dedicated to exploring the unseen world and sharing this knowledge with others. 

Many changes occurring within our department and on campus are providing extraordinary opportunities and challenges for our community. We have a new budget model that will change how we prioritize our expenditures and investments in the future. Our College of Arts and Sciences is undergoing structural modifications that will change how we as a department interface with administration and the rest of campus. The Office of Research has announced strategic initiatives that will change how we contextualize our research programs as we seek new funding and develop collaborations with others. 

We are seeing changes in career goals of our students, with an increased emphasis on health-related careers, particularly in infectious disease and immunology. This demand for a health-related curriculum provides us with an opportunity to develop new courses and programs that meet the needs of the future health workforce of the nation. 

Our campus is experiencing dramatic increases in enrollment which will change how we teach effectively. Increased enrollment expands our reach, giving us the opportunity to educate more students about the importance and fascinating features of microbes. It also challenges us to change our pedagogy to enhance learning in large class sizes and to be creative in identifying space and resources to ensure that critical hands-on, modernized instructional lab experiences are available to all registered students. 

Our collective ability to meet all of these challenges and thrive as a department is due to the ongoing effort and creativity of our people. I am pleased to announce the arrival this year of our new assistant professors, Lindsey Burcham and Andrew Monteith. They bring new research and instructional expertise in infectious diseases and immunology, relevant to the new campus Human Health and Wellness initiative. They are launching their independent research programs and building new collaborations within the department, across campus, and beyond. 

Our talented undergraduate instructional team includes Distinguished Lecturer Elizabeth McPherson and Research Assistant Professor Gary LeCleir, as well as new members: Lecturer Jessica Pyle and Research Assistant Professor Zachary Burcham. These extremely talented instructors help us move into the future through their excellence in classroom instruction, by their continuous improvement of the curriculum, and by supporting the graduate student teaching assistants under their supervision. 

Our faculty offer high-demand courses that span the tremendous breadth of microbiology, from ecology, physiology, and molecular biology to virology, immunology, and pathogenesis. In addition, in collaboration with our sister biology departments, we have created a new global health concentration within the biology BS degree. This concentration emphasizes the One Health integration of environmental, agricultural, and human, and public health. 

Graduate students are the thread that weaves through, and binds the department together with their research, teaching, and service. In this edition of the newsletter we present the stories from several graduate students and their past, present and future perspectives. I hope you’ll agree with me that thanks to them, the future is very bright! 

Heidi Goodrich-Blair
Department Head
David and Sandra White Professor of Microbiology