Todd Gray, Ph.D._[1]
Todd likes to dream up new areas of investigation, and tinkers at the bench just enough to give those projects an initial push before handing them off. He enjoys the relative ease of Mycobacterium smegmatis as a model organism over Mus musculus! These little models are great for uncovering the secrets of mycobacteria.
 

Keith Derbyshire, Ph.D_[2] 
Keith does not work in the lab as much as he would like! However, when he does get into the laboratory, he likes to do the classic, old-school bacterial genetics experiments. He is happiest patching and doing crosses. Everyone else is glad he sticks to these simple tasks!!

Jill Canestrari uses Next Gen sequencing and reporter assays to examine gene expression in Mycobacterium smegmatis. She also generates and characterizes mutants of Mycobacterium abscessus to dissect secretion system regulation in this non-tuberculous mycobacterium.  

 

Siyao Du, Assistant Research Scientist
Siyao is testing the role of novel small proteins in regulating cysteine biosynthesis in mycobacteria and she is expanding her work to include other small proteins as well. Siyao designs and creates specific reporter plasmids and gene deletion substrates as part of her effort.

 

 

Emma Gordon Senior Laboratory Technician
Emma has initiated our work into a transcription factor that is associated with virulence in pathogenic mycobacteria and is required for conjugation in our non-pathogenic mycobacteria. She is defining the signaling network and identifying new activities required in this gene transfer process.

 

Easton Reagan, APHL Fellow
Easton is investigating distributive conjugal transfer, focusing on the “kin” recognition system within mycobacteria and how genetic alterations in recipient and donor strains affects gene transfer ability. This work will begin to unravel how mycobacteria recognize and distinguish one another.

• Poster presented at APHL's 2024 annual meeting | Traversing the Unknown Within Mycobacterial Horizontal Gene Transfer by Assessing Recipient Mating Identity Protein Function_[3].