Many graduate students call the lab their second home. I was fortunate enough to have a second “lab home”. Today, we meet Stéphane Benoit, a microbiologist from my second “lab home” who has taught me much of what I know about working with the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Growing up in the French village of…
For bacteria, addiction to DNA can be a life or death situation. Lose that DNA and the bacterium suffers an unfortunate toxic death. Many bacteria easily transfer DNA amongst themselves in the forms of plasmid DNA. Plasmids are mobile genetic elements that replicate independently of the chromosome. These small circular pieces of DNA often contain…
Naomi Boxall is not afraid to point out that the pictures of people in white lab coats with colorful vials of liquids do not show how real science is done. She’s had to take one of those pictures herself. Her time in science has led her to sample soil and water in the Western Australian…
Meet Deinococcus radiodurans, one of the world’s toughest bacterium. It’s an extremophile and one of the most radiation-resistant organisms known on Earth. This hardy little bacterium can survive over a thousand times the amount of radiation that would kill a human. Its tolerance to many harsh conditions has earned itself the name “Conan the Bacterium,”…
Eva Garmendia has always been interested in the small and invisible since she can remember. According to Eva, she was “[amazed] that there is a universe we couldn’t see and yet, we could study and understand it.” As an undergraduate at the University of Granada, she found genetics calling her name and spent her time…