Check out the great write-up about our new paper and NASA grant published today!
IUPUI Geology professor researches groundbreaking bacterial discovery
Check out the great write-up about our new paper and NASA grant published today!
IUPUI Geology professor researches groundbreaking bacterial discovery
Welcome our new SEED intern Josiah Hnin! He is studying the geochemistry of an Ordovician drill core for his summer project.
Alice Bosco Santos and Cynthia Silveira wrote a great Nature blog post about our recent paper published in Nature Communications. Take a look to learn more about viral infection of sulfide oxidizing bacteria and implications of this work!
We were funded by NASA to study how natural populations viruses control photosynthetic sulfur bacteria. Research shows that bacteria in seawater or corals are strongly influenced by viruses. We think that the blooms of purple bacteria in anoxic lakes may also be influenced by viral communities. If correct, this would revolutionize our understanding of the conditions that promote or prevent microbial blooms. To date, most of the controls have thought to been sunlight and sulfide; however, viruses may be the hidden figures behind the persistence and activity of photosynthetic bacteria.
This project is with: Alice Bosco Santos (University of Lausanne), Cynthia Silveira (U Miami), Joe Werne (U Pittsburgh) and Molly O’Beirne (U Pittsburgh)
More about NASA Exobiology here
Bawi Sung and Nahum Gerezgher are both American Chemical Society Project SEED interns in our lab this summer. Bawi is studying Ordovician carbonates and Nahum is studying iron chemistry of a northern Indiana lake. Both are doing an awesome job.
Fotis did it again by winning a graduate research award from Sigma Xi.
Fotis was awarded a GSA summer research grant. Nice job!