In my dissertation research at Hebrw University under Profs. S. Belkin and A.F. Post I developed cyanobacterial biosensors for nutrient detection in freshwater and marine environments. We demonstrated that only a small fraction of the chemically determined phosphorus measured in freshwater lakes may actually be bioavailable to the phytoplankton community. In contrast, most of the dissolved nitrogen pool was bioavailable to the phytoplankton indicating that phosphorus limitation in the monitored lakes is more extensive then previously thought.
During my postdoc with Dr. M.A. Riley at Yale University and the University of Massachusetts, I used Escherichia coli produced bacteriocins (colicins) to develop in vitro, in vivo and in silico (together with B. Kerr of Washington University) experimental models and identify the ecological role of microbial defense systems under a variety of environmental settings. My recent work has focused on establishing a mouse model to permit examination of the role of bacteriocins in mediating the dynamics of bacterial interactions in a more natural setting, the mouse colon. These studies have revealed that microbial defense systems may play an important role in the generation and maintenance of biological diversity. |
