Synthetic Microbiology
Our research is focused on developing a unique microbial tracking system that
allows us to monitor entire bacterial communities over multiple generations with
single-cell resolution. We call it the "social media for microbes". This system
enables us to study surface sensing, which is the ability of bacteria to detect
and respond to changes in their environment. Additionally, we aim to better
understand how bacteria coordinate multicellular behavior within lineages, which
is critical for their survival and adaptation. Finally, we are exploring the
concept of multigenerational memory via second messengers, which involves the
transfer of internal information from one generation of bacteria to the next as
a way for bacteria to communicate with each other over time. We see that
bacteria can have a wide range of responses, ranging from very fast changes in
their swimming speeds over a time period of a few seconds to very slow changes
in their signaling profile over the course of multiple hours or days.
We believe that these studies will lead to a better understanding of how bacteria interact with their environment and with each other, which could have important implications for fields such as medicine, agriculture, and environmental science.
Highlighted Publications
Here are some of our recent publications that highlight our work on bacteria.
Related Publications
More general references for our work on bacteria are listed below. The papers are available on our publications page.
- Lewis et al, J Bact, 2022
- Webster et al, mBio, 2022
- Lee et al, PNAS, 2022
- Cao et al, Science, 2021
- Webster et al, PNAS, 2021
- Wong et al, Phys Biol, 2021
- Young et al, ACS Appl Mat Int, 2020
- Floyd et al, Nature Comm, 2020
- Wu et al, PLoS Genetics, 2020
- Lee et al, mBio, 2019
- Armbruster, Lee et al, eLife, 2019
- Zamorano-Sanchez, Xian, et al, mBio, 2019
- Lee et al, PNAS, 2018
- Tursi et al, PLoS Pathogens, 2017
- De Anda et al, ACS Nano, 2017
- Brill-Karniely et al, Scientific Reports, 2017
- Lee et al, ACS Nano, 2016
- Ding et al, ACS Nano, 2016
- Gelimson et al, Phys Rev Lett, 2016
- Kranz et al, Phys Rev Lett, 2016
- Bennett et al, RSC Interface, 2016
- Wong, PNAS, 2016
- Biteen et al, ACS Nano, 2016
- O'Toole & Wong, Curr Opinion Microbiol, 2016
- Hu et al, Scientific Reports, 2015
- Luo et al, mBio, 2015
- Jones et al, PloS Pathogens, 2015
- Maier & Wong, Trends in Microbiol, 2015
- Teschler et al, Nature Reviews Microbiol, 2015
- Utada et al, Nature Comm, 2014
- Zhao et al, Nature 2013
- Gibiansky et al, PNAS 2013
- Jin et al, PNAS 2011
- Gibiansky et al, Science 2010