Project Info

Environmental Microbiology in the Lab – Nanosensors to Monitor Capillary-based Systems

Microbial communities are all around us. They’re present in soil, your body and every local pond—breaking down and recycling nutrients. The interdependence of these communities has been known for over a century, with the waste from one microbe providing nutrients to another. Our goal in this research is to develop our nanosensing tools to adequately measure interrelated metabolism in a spatially and temporally defined manner. To do this, we are making sensors that are small enough to fit in the spaces between the bacteria to report concentration changes in some of the key metabolites in these settings – oxygen, lactate, iron and sulfate. We are also developing smaller capillary-based model systems to better mimic the real-world settings seen in the environment while remaining suitable for use in the lab.

1. My website:
https://cashlab.org

Jewell MP, Galyean AA, Kirk Harris J, Zemanick ET, Cash KJ. 2019. Luminescent nanosensors for ratiometric monitoring of three-dimensional oxygen gradients in laboratory and clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. Appl Environ Microbiol 85:e01116-19.
https://aem.asm.org/content/85/20/e01116-19/article-info

Grand Challenge: Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

Student Preparation

Qualifications

Bio1, and ideally (but not necessarily) prior research experience.

Time Commitment

~6-8 hours/week

Skills/Techniques Gained

Bacterial cell culture, fluorescence imaging, fluorescence and absorbance spectroscopy.

Mentoring Plan

-Weekly one-on-one meetings or sub-project meetings
-Weekly group meetings.