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Steve Diggle Named Director of the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection at Georgia Tech
The College of Sciences is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Diggle as the director of the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI). Diggle is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the principal investigator for the Diggle Lab.
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What's on the Horizon for 2023?
Members of the Tech community share their plans for the new year.
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Researchers and Alumni Aid in $2.6 Million Effort to Restore Salt Marshes in Historic Charleston
What started as a citizen science initiative led by a Georgia Tech alum has led to a $2.6 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation effort to restore degraded salt marshes in historic Charleston. As part of the project, which is being spearheaded by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, School of Biological Sciences Professor and Associate Chair of Research Joel Kostka will lead a team of researchers to monitor restoration efforts — and to better understand why the marsh died off in the first place.
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To the Moon, Back, and Beyond
The Artemis I rocket launch is a major step in NASA's return to Earth's moon. Hear from seven Georgia Tech experts — including Thom Orlando, Feryal Özel, and Frances Rivera-Hernández — on why we're going and what we might find, the science and politics of space, and predictions on the broader future of space exploration.
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New International Center Will Support Collaborative Solutions to Improve Health of World’s Oceans
In a significant response to urgent climate-related threats, a new international center headquartered at Georgia Aquarium, endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, will support versatile, collaborative solutions to improve the health of the world’s oceans. The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions (OV – UN DCC), a partnership with Ocean Visions, Georgia Aquarium, and Georgia Tech, is the only center of its kind in the United States.
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Professor Dusts Off High School Musical Skills for “The Mold That Changed the World”
A touring musical celebrating the man who gave us penicillin is inviting local scientists to join the chorus for its Atlanta shows — and School of Biological Sciences Associate Professor Brian Hammer is ready for showtime.
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Fall 2022 GT Astrobiology Distinguished Lecture and Social Event!
Please join us for the Fall 2022 GT Astrobiology Distinguished Lecture and Social Event! In the afternoon, there will be a social event with food and refreshments beginning at 4:00 PM, located at the Molecular Science and Engineering (MoSE) outdoor patio, ground floor. We will also be taking a group photo at this time, so bring your GT Astrobiology shirts!
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Research Next Enters New Phase
With the research landscape rapidly changing, Georgia Tech must respond to external forces to address local, national, and global challenges and produce novel ideas and actionable solutions. In alignment with the Institute strategic plan, Research Next positions Georgia Tech to respond to future challenges with innovation, expertise, creativity, and a dedication to improving the human condition.
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No Separations: Meet Ellinor Alseth, CMDI’s First Early Career Award Fellow
The Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection’s inaugural Early Career Award Fellow shares about launching her interdisciplinary postdoctoral research program and asks: Can a bacteria that’s “good at scooping up DNA” teach us about harnessing viruses to battle bacterial infections?
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Joshua Weitz Named Simons Investigator of Theoretical Physics in Life Sciences
Viruses play an important role in shaping human and environmental health. Joshua Weitz, School of Biological Sciences professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair, has been named a Simons Investigator for his theoretical work on microbial and viral ecology and infectious disease dynamics.
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Mathematics and Biological Sciences Researchers Receive NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships
A trio of postdoctoral scientists have received support for research across the College of Sciences in celestial mechanics, microbial dynamics and infection, and host-microbe symbiosis.
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NASA Astrobiology Unveils New Research Coordination Network at AbSciCon 2022
Frank Rosenzweig, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and Georgia Tech Astrobiology faculty member, will serve as co-leader of the NASA Astrobiology Research Coordination Network, 'LIFE: Early Cells to Multicellularity.'
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The Faces of Resiliency video series highlights how communities are increasing their resilience to sea level rise, storm surge and flooding
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An Evolution of Astrobiology
Three researchers from the Colleges of Engineering and Sciences are leading astrobiology’s largest national conference focused on the origins of life.
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Wild Tech: Diving Deep to Cure Diseases
Georgia Tech researchers venture out of the lab to find clues to everything from how to better communicate with robots to curing disease. Here are some of their wildest innovations inspired by nature.
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Mark Hay Elected to National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Mark E. Hay, Regents' Professor and Teasley Chair in Environmental Biology in the School of Biological Sciences, has been elected a member of both the National Academy of Sciences, as well as the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
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Spring Sciences Celebration Honors Faculty and Staff Excellence
Joined by alumni and friends, the College of Sciences welcomes new professors, presents annual faculty honors alongside inaugural staff and research faculty awards in recognition of individual excellence and community accomplishments.
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College of Sciences Advances in U.S. News Best Graduate School Rankings
U.S. News and World Report ranks all six College of Sciences schools among the best overall science programs in the nation for graduate studies. In the 2023 edition, Biology rises 17 places, Earth Sciences by 10, Mathematics by five, and Psychology by six. Specialty programs also take home high marks, with six in the top 20.
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Salt Marsh Grass On Georgia’s Coast Gets Nutrients for Growth From Helpful Bacteria in Its Roots
A new study points to possible help for restoring marine ecosystems — and provides more data on the role microbes play in marsh plant health and productivity.
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Surveillance Testing Shown to Reduce Community Covid-19 Spread
In early 2020, Georgia Tech researchers designed a saliva-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and encouraged community members to test weekly to track the health of the campus.
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Timing is Everything: Researchers Shed Light on How Diverse Microbes May Co-Exist Despite Scarce Resources
Collectively responsible for roughly half of global carbon fixation, diverse groups of microbes coexist while relying on limited nutrients even as some microbes depend on energy from the sun to grow via photosynthesis. Precisely because microbes compete for scarce nutrients, how such a vast diversity of ocean microbes coexist has long puzzled scientists. Researchers from Georgia Tech, in collaboration with 13 other institutions, aimed to shed light on the subject as part of new work published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
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Getting to the Root of Plant-Soil Interactions: Optical Instrument to Give Clearest 3D Images Yet of Rhizosphere
Georgia Tech scientists and engineers are building a new DOE-funded instrument that captures 3D images of plant-microbe chemical reactions underground in an interdisciplinary effort to develop biofuels and fertilizers — and help mitigate climate change.
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Underwater Gardens Boost Coral Diversity to Stave Off ‘Biodiversity Meltdown’
School of Biological Sciences researchers Cody Clements and Mark Hay are building symbiotic ‘underwater gardens’ in the Pacific Ocean to show how different species of coral can work together to possibly restore degraded reefs.
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Joshua Weitz Named Blaise Pascal International Chair of Excellence
Joshua Weitz, School of Biological Sciences professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair heads to France to hold Blaise Pascal International Chair of Excellence, continue virus research, and teach.
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How I Spent My Summer: NSF REUs Welcome Undergraduate Researchers
In 2022, all six schools in Georgia Tech's College of Sciences will offer a summer NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Students attending this year's REUs recount what they learned, and how it will impact their academic careers.
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CMDI: Mighty Microbial Dynamics for a Healthier People and Planet
Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI) merges disciplines, aggressively recruiting microbiologist ‘superstars’ to take back the high ground from antibiotic-resistant pathogens and emerging diseases — and to harness microbes to provide new medicines, cleaner environments, and solutions to the challenges of climate change.
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InQuBATE Training Program Integrates Modeling and Data Science for Bioscience Ph.D. Students
The NIH-funded program is designed to train a new generation of biomedical researchers and thought leaders to harness the data revolution.
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Inaugural CMDI-CDC Symposium Offers Perspectives on Infectious Disease Dynamics
In June, the first ever joint symposium of the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection at Georgia Tech (CMDI) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brought together interdisciplinary researchers to discuss infectious disease dynamics.
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Temperate Glimpse Into a Warming World
SPRUCE experiment study shows elevated levels of greenhouse gases emerging from carbon-rich peatlands
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Did Earth’s Early Rise in Oxygen Support The Evolution of Multicellular Life — or Suppress It?
Despite a long-held hypothesis that oxygen determined the size of large, complex multicellular organisms during the early Earth, researchers have found the early rise in global oxygen, should have, “in fact strongly constrain[ed] the evolution of macroscopic multicellularity, rather than selecting for larger and more complex organisms.”
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Neha Garg Receives NSF CAREER Award to Fight Coral Reef Disease
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease is ravaging Florida's coral reefs, with 20 out of 45 coral species in the state's waters already infected. School of Chemistry and Biochemistry assistant professor Neha Garg has received an NSF CAREER Award to help battle this rapidly spreading disease.
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Julia Kubanek Named Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research
Julia Kubanek, professor of biological sciences and chemistry and biochemistry, and associate dean for Research in Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences, has been named vice president for Interdisciplinary Research, effective July 1.
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Research Papers on Estimating Covid-19 Risk at Events, Hidden Symmetries in Origami Capture Annual Sigma Xi Honors
Professors in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Physics capture top annual honors from the Georgia Tech chapter of Sigma Xi scientific research society.
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#StraightToTheSource Cuts through Covid-19 Confusion, Finds the Facts with Faculty Experts
The College's #StraightToTheSource social media series answers Covid-19-related community and frequently asked questions by directly examining scientific findings and research with College of Sciences experts.
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Biology Student Awarded the 2021 Bud Suddath Memorial Award
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The Tension Between Awareness and Fatigue Shapes Covid-19 Spread
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, two human factors are battling it out: awareness of the virus’s severe consequences and fatigue from nine months of pandemic precautions. The results of that battle can be seen in the oddly shaped case, hospitalization, and fatality-count graphs, a new study suggests.
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Home for the Holidays: Know the Travel Risks Before You Go
As Covid-19 outbreaks surge in several states, the choice to see family this holiday season gets more complicated by the day. Thankfully, Georgia Tech developed a tool that can help estimate the potential risk of exposure.
“Think of our research and the risk assessment tool like a weather map. We aren’t telling you to get your umbrella or to stay inside, but we are telling you that outside it is raining," said Clio Andris.
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Specialized Cells or Multicellular Multitaskers? New Study Reshapes Early Economics and Ecology Behind Evolutionary Division of Labor
Two Georgia Tech scientists are raising new questions about the development of specialized cells in early multicellular organisms.
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Georgia Tech, MIT Team Wins $1.5 Million NSF Grant
A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have received a three-year, $1.5 million grant for their project entitled “SemiSynBio-II: A Hybrid Programmable Nano-Bioelectronic System.” The target applications for this technology are environmental monitoring and healthcare.
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Greg Gibson and Joshua Weitz: Science and Projections for Our Return to Campus
Video recap: Watch Joshua Weitz and Greg Gibson provide updates on Covid-19 projections and coronavirus surveillance testing, with a focus on the return to campus.
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The Hidden Social Networks of Microbes
Gina Lewin, postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Marvin Whiteley, investigates the interactions between oral microbes.
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Georgia Tech Researchers Release County-Level Calculator to Estimate Risk of Covid-19 Exposure at U.S. Events
The new county-level calculator builds on the team’s interactive state-level tool, which estimates the daily risk that one or more individuals infected with Covid-19 are present in U.S. events of various sizes.
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Collaborative Covid-19 Research Receives National Science Foundation RAPID Grant
Antibody testing research, led by Biological Sciences’ Joshua Weitz and Emory University professor Benjamin Lopman, earns an NSF urgent funding grant to further study Covid-19 ‘shield immunity’.
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A Problematic Pathogen Develops Antibiotic Tolerance — Without Previous Exposure
A study led by The Diggle Lab found that the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa can quickly evolve in a synthetic media that mimics cystic fibrosis sputum, to develop tolerance and resistance to certain antibiotics.
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Cavity-causing Bacteria Assemble an Army of Protective Microbes on Human Teeth
Examining bacteria growing on toddlers’ teeth, Marvin Whiteley and a team from the University of Pennsylvania found microbes’ spatial organization is crucial to how they cause tooth decay.
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NSF Supports Research to Study how Bacterial Antagonism Impacts Biofilms
Georgia Tech researchers will study dynamics of inter-microbial aggression in bacterial biofilms
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‘An Ardent Advocate’: Joshua Weitz Named Georgia Tech Faculty of the Year by Graduate Student Government Association
School of Biological Sciences Professor Joshua Weitz is honored by the Graduate Student Government Association for his advocacy efforts for students.
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Immunity of Recovered COVID-19 Patients Could Cut Risk of Expanding Economic Activity
The presumed immunity of those who have recovered from the infection could allow them to safely substitute for susceptible people in certain high-contact occupations such as healthcare. Dubbed “shield immunity,” the anticipated protection against short-term reinfection could allow recovered patients to expand their interactions with infected and susceptible people.
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Joel Kostka Details the Microbial Legacy of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
School of Biological Sciences Professor Joel Kostka has co-authored a final report for four scientific organizations on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform disaster on the microbial ecology of the world's oceans.
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Keeping Connected with Science: The Stay at Home Journal Club
How Jennifer Leavey’s videos use research articles to build personal contact and educate online communities about COVID-19 research.
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Deepwater Horizon and the Rise of the Omics: A Decade of Breakthroughs in Microbial Science
A new article from Georgia Tech professor Joel Kostka highlights the advances made in microbial science in the 10 years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the world's worst environmental disaster.
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Scientists Discuss COVID-19 with GPB, 11Alive, Kurzgesagt, National Geographic
COVID-19 has sent many to seek out the latest information and ask questions about the spread of the virus in Georgia and whether initial sources of the coronavirus in the state can be tracked. Georgia Tech College of Sciences faculty and researchers continue to share insights and expertise in news reports focused on the topic.
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Nonlinear Science Seminar: Dynamics of COVID-19: Near- and Long-Term Challenges
In this one-hour talk, Joshua Weitz provides background on foundational concepts of disease dynamics, and perspectives on near- and long-term challenges related to the pandemic spread and potential control of COVID-19.
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Georgia Tech Science Forum Spotlights Coronavirus Outbreak
The science behind the epidemiological detective story regarding the current coronavirus epidemic was the subject of a Georgia Tech forum this week.
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Digging Up Climate Clues in Peat Moss
Gardeners love peat moss; it’s great for growing plants. But Joel Kostka, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, wonders if it serves as a warning sign for the impact of climate change on plants and microbes. He travels to a unique experimentation site in Minnesota to find answers to his questions.
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Warming Impedes a Coral Defense, but Hungry Fish Enhance It
Corals exude chemical defenses against bacteria, but when heated in the lab, those defenses lost much potency against a pathogen involved in coral bleaching. There's hope: A key coral's defense was heartier when that coral was taken from an area where fishing was banned. Plenty of fish were left to eat away seaweed that was overgrowing corals elsewhere and may have weakened the key coral's defenses even more.
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Periodontitis Bacteria Love Colon and Dirt Microbes
Mythbuster: The idea that bacterial collaborations within microbiomes, like in the mouth, have evolved to be generous and exclusive very much appears to be wrong. In an extensive experiment, lavish collaborations ensued between random microbes. And some bacteria from the same microbiome were stingy with one another.
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Georgia Tech, Institut Pasteur Receive $2.5 M NIH Grant to Study Phage Therapy
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $2.5 M grant over five years to advance the clinical potential of bacteria-killing viruses to treat antibiotic-resistant infections. Joshua Weitz of the School of Biological Sciences and Justin Debarbieux of Institut Pasteur will lead teams in the U.S. and France to research the interaction between bacteriophage, bacteria, and the innate immune response to enable use of phage therapy even with patients with impaired immune systems.
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Graduate students Cristian Crisan and Aroon Chande discover a novel, active toxin used by the pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae to kill competitor cells.
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Seaweed and sea slugs rely on toxic bacteria to defend against predators
Some animals that can’t manufacture their own chemical weapons feed on toxic organisms and steal their chemical defenses, having evolved resistance to them. One animal that does this is a sea slug that lives on the reefs surrounding Hawaii and dines on toxic Bryopsis algae. Marine scientists suspected the toxin is made by a bacterium that lives within the alga but have only just discovered the species responsible and teased apart the complex relationship between slug, seaweed, and microbe.
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Regarding climate change, biologists warn: Don’t forget the microbes
An international group of microbiologists, including Georgia Tech's Frank Stewart, is warning that as science tries to search for climate-change solutions, it’s ignoring the potential consequences for climate change’s tiniest, unseen victims – the world’s microbial communities.
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Impact of Warming on Peatlands
It is a fact that climate is changing, but how much and how fast are the subject of debate. Georgia Tech researchers are attempting to answer these questions for peatlands, a freshwater wetland ecosystem. Their recent work indicates that warming of peatlands increases microbial production of greenhouse gases, releases more methane than carbon dioxide, reduces microbial diversity, and alters the composition of microbial communities in peat soils.
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Antibiotics, Taken Strategically, Could Actually Help Defeat Antibiotic Resistance
Those same antibiotics driving antibiotic resistance could also help defeat it if used with the right strategy. Making it work would require companion health strategies like staying home from work when carrying resistant bacteria.
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Ratcliff and Yunker: 2019 Sigma Xi Faculty Best Paper Award
Georgia Tech has named William Ratcliff and Peter Yunker as recipients of the 2019 Sigma Xi Faculty Best Paper Award. They are co-principal authors of the paper “Cellular packing, mechanical stress and the evolution of multicellularity,” published in Nature Physics in 2018.
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How to Avoid Being A Meal for Others
Bulking up to avoid being eaten may have been one reason single-celled organisms joined to form multicellular entities.
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Georgia Tech Microbiologists Elected AAM Fellows
The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) has elected 109 new fellows in 2019. Among them are Joel Kostka and Joshua Weitz.
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Researchers Team Up for Microbial Dynamics and Infection
Georgia Tech scientists with expertise in microbial chemical ecology, evolution, and quantitative modeling have formed the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection. The center will investigate the mechanisms and consequences of microbial community dynamics in the environment and during infection.
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NSF Supports Research on the Microbes in Peat Moss
Three-year, $1.15 million grant to researchers at Georgia Tech, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and Oak Ridge National Lab will examine the role of the peat moss microbiome in nutrient uptake and methane dynamics of wetlands.
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A Healthy Microbiome for the Georgia Aquarium: Episode 4, Starring Nastassia Patin
Massive whale sharks headline the Ocean Voyager exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium. Its tiniest residents are the ones that concern Nastassia Patin in ScienceMatters Episode 4.
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Microbial Research may be the Key to Salt Marsh Restoration
Little is known about plant microbiomes, particularly those associated with salt-tolerant coastal plants like Spartina alterniflora, which dominate Georgia’s salt marshes. With funding from Georgia Sea Grant, Kostka is studying the microbes intimately associated with Spartina to better understand how the plant microbiome supports the health of Georgia’s salt marshes.
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Collaboration with Microbiologist Yields Results on Slowing Microbial Resistance to Antibiotics
Using a mathematical model, Georgia Tech biomathematician Howard “Howie” Weiss and Stockholm University microbiologist Klas Udekwu open a potential path to slowing microbial resistance to current antibiotics.
Using a mathematical model, Georgia Tech biomathematician Howard “Howie” Weiss and Stockholm University microbiologist Klas Udekwu open a potential path to slowing microbial resistance to current antibiotics.
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Hammer and Kostka Named Distinguished Lecturers
Brian Hammer and Joel Kostka, in the School of Biological Sciences, are among the most distinguished lecturers and researchers the American Society of Microbiology selected in 2018 to speak at various ASM branch meetings throughout the U.S.
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Bacterial Conversations in Cystic Fibrosis
Despite the wealth of information about how bacteria communicate, little is known about how quorum sensing proceeds during an infection. Georgia Tech researchers describe for the first time how close bacteria need to be to “talk” in an environment similar to chronic infection in cystic fibrosis.
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Stewart, Parris & Jones: 2018 Education Partnership Award
Frank Stewart and Darren Parris are being recognized for their collaborative Summer Workshop in Marine Science (SWiMS) program. The award recognizes genuine and substantial partnerships between Georgia Tech faculty and students and the K-12 community. Also receiving the award is their K-12 partner Jennifer Jones, a chemistry teacher at Rockdale County High School.
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In zebrafish, the cholera bacterium sets off a surprising flush
Researchers experimenting with live zebrafish witnessed a 200% increase in the strength of intestinal contractions soon after the organisms were exposed to the cholera-causing bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The strong contractions led to expulsion of native gut bacteria.Researchers experimenting with live zebrafish witnessed a 200% increase in the strength of intestinal contractions soon after the organisms were exposed to the cholera-causing bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The strong contractions led to expulsion of native gut bacteria.
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Small Things Considered at Suddath Symposium
Annual two-day event showcases thought leaders in microbiology research from Georgia Tech and beyond
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2018 Smith Medal to Mark Hay
Mark E. Hay, Regents Professor and Harry and Linda Teasley Chair in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech, is the recipient of the 2018 Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal of the National Academy of Sciences. The award recognizes Hay’s research into algal science, with implications for the world’s imperiled coral reefs.
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Want to Beat Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs? Rethink Strep Throat Remedies
Antibiotics could become nearly useless by mid-century against intense infections due to bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance. And alternative treatments haven't been able to replace antibiotics in those big infections. It's time for a rethink: Try reducing antibiotic use for small infections and find alternate remedies for them instead to slow the evolution of resistance. That should preserve antibiotic effectiveness for the big infections.
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Joshua Weitz Elected AAAS Fellow
Scholar, educator, award-winning book author, interdisciplinary innovator, and shaper of future scientists, Joshua S. Weitz wears many hats at Georgia Tech, but his influence reaches far beyond. For his contributions to the field of viral ecology, Joshua Weitz has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
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Toward Personalized Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis
Sam Brown aims to understand the dynamics of the bacterial populations – or microbiomes – associated with cystic fibrosis to develop treatments targeting the specific microbiomes of individual patients.
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Bacteria-Killing Virus Teams Up with Animal Immune Response to Cure Acute Infections
The rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs poses a serious public health threat. In response, scientists and clinicians are exploring alternative ways to cure bacterial infections that are untreatable by antibiotics. One approach is to use bacteria-killing viruses – also known as bacteriophage, or phage.
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Joel Kostka on Microbes and Climate Change
What can microorganisms teach us about climate change? Plenty, because microbes respond, adapt, and evolve faster than other organisms. Scientists can discover how microorganisms will change because of global warming more quickly than is possible for complex organisms. Understanding how microbes respond to climate change will help predict its effects on other forms of life, including humans.
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Size Matters for Marine Protected Areas Designed to Aid Coral
For marine protected areas established to help coral reefs recover from overfishing, size really does seem to make a difference.
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Cholera Bacteria Stab and Poison Enemies so Predictably
Could bacteria with aggressive weapons someday replace some antibiotics? Perhaps. Researchers are using math to predict cholera strains' effectiveness against competing cholera, as they stab and poison each other on the battlefield. Being able to calculate the action virtually as well as a chemical reaction helps open the door to biomedical and other engineering uses.
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Would You Like Extra Viruses With Your Yogurt?
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed the viral content of the human gut (Manrique et al., PNAS, 2016). The research focused on a particular kind of virus called bacteriophage, which only infect bacterial cells and do not infect human cells. Manrique and colleagues found that healthy individuals had a “core” group of bacteriophage. In addition, they found that these core bacteriophage were less frequently found in individuals with gastrointestinal disease. This novel finding reveals a potential link between the viruses in our gut and our health. Joshua Weitz explains.
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Game Theory Shows How Tragedies of the Commons Might be Averted
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a theory to unite the study of behavior and its effect on the environment. In doing so, they combined theories of strategic behavior with those of resource depletion and restoration, leading to what they term an “oscillating tragedy of the commons.”
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Freeing a Scientific Mind to Envision Big Research: Packard Fellowship to Will Ratcliff
That the right funding can focus science on longer, bigger gains becomes clear through the example of Will Ratcliff, just named a 2016 Packard Fellow. The announcement jolted his research mindset far beyond the horizons of his prior projects, and has inspired a vision for a research legacy and high hopes of making a lasting contribution to evolutionary science.
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Global Warming, a Dead Zone and Mysterious Bacteria
Global warming is expanding ocean regions where oxygen has already vanished. There, newly discovered bacteria deplete waters of nitrogen, a nutrient essential to life. Though nitrogen depletion itself is natural, it appears to be expanding along with burgeoning dead zones. That could add to greenhouse gas production and cause other imbalances, and newly discovered bacteria play a major role.