Characterizing novel pathways for sialic acid metabolism in gut bacteria
Ashley Wolf, Professor
Public Health
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
The gut microbiome is a complex community of microbes that have unique enzymatic capabilities. Some gut bacteria metabolize sialic acids that are found in the diet and/or produced by host cells. We have identified putative genes that encode enzymes responsible for sialic acid metabolism. This project will use cloning to overexpress these genes in E. coli and characterize the function of the resulting enzymes.
Role: The undergraduate will perform molecular cloning, plasmid transformation, bacterial culturing and data analysis.
Qualifications: Student should have coursework in biology and ideally some laboratory class experience.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Vienvilay Phandanouvong-Lozano, Post-Doc
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Biological & Health Sciences