'The Scoop' From the Department Head, Bob Franks |
|
|
|
Thank you all for coming to our 25th annual Ice Cream Social last month! This event brought together faculty, staff, and students, providing a lovely atmosphere to meet new members of our community and reconnect with familiar faces. We look forward to another year of growth, discovery, and collaboration.
- Bob Franks, Department Head
|
|
|
Masters of Microbial Biotechnology (MMB) |
First and second-year MMB students pose on the second floor of Fox Hall between classes.
|
The MMB program has exciting new industry projects this year with businesses in the Research Triangle Park including:
|
- LabCorp
- Ad Astra Diagnostics
- bioMérieux
- Gilead Sciences
- FUJIFILM Biotechnologies
|
Two industry mentors are alumni and one is a continuing student in the MMB program. All are excited to have students join their work on cutting edge projects in the fields of AI, technical capacity, commercialization research and pharmaceutical innovation. The MMB program is very proud to see alumni continue to support and engage with current students.
|
|
|
Microbiology Graduate Program |
The MB GSA did outreach at Bugfest this year and taught kids about insect-microbe interactions! We showcased research from the Mikaelyan, Raymann, and Kleiner labs with graduate students from all across campus participating!
|
Welcome back from the Microbiology Graduate Program!
|
2025-2026 MB GSA Student Officers:
|
-
Edeline Anthoniraj, President
- Jenna Kraemer, Vice President
- Carla Sanchez, Treasurer/Secretary
- Dexter Boldog, GSA Representative
- Emma Gray, Social & Outreach Coordinator
|
|
|
Plant Biology Graduate Program |
2025-2026 PB GSA Officers:
|
- K Brinson, President
- Erin Logan, Vice President
- Erin Emott, Treasurer
- Elizabeth Paillan, Social Director
- Lemor Carlton, Secretary
|
|
|
| The PB GSA recently launched their own Instagram account! Follow them @ncsubpgsa for the latest information and updates.
|
|
| Plant Biology Undergraduate Program |
Welcome to our new and returning undergraduates in Plant Biology!
|
2025-2026 Botany Club Officers:
|
- Giuliana Mendoza, President
- Caitlyn Elliott, Vice President
- Shriya Reddy, Secretary/Treasurer
- Ellison Marshall, Agri-Life Representative
- Gabi Ortiz, Agri-Life Representative
-
Christel Schober-Colburn, Social Media Coordinator
|
|
|
Lab Updates & Publications |
|
|
Miki Chen presents her poster at the GGA retreat.
|
Hannah Davis presents her poster at the GGA retreat.
|
| Allison Lassiter, a new undergraduate student, joined the Alonso-Stepanova lab this fall!
Undergraduates Hannah Davis and Miki Chen spent their summer doing research in the Alonso-Stepanova lab. Their work was funded by the ASPB SURF and GGA mini-grant awards, respectively. Both of them are continuing their research this fall, along with Adam Nawar (PEP recipient) and Cate McKenna (Chilton award recipient).
Our Plants4kids outreach program ran a whole-day BugFest demo at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences on September 20.
|
|
|
Hannah Davis won the Best Poster award at the Annual Genetics Genomics Academy retreat.
Katie Vollen, a PB graduate student, won 1st place in the Genetics Genomics Academy flash talk contest.
New Publications:
|
- Fernandez-Moreno J.P.#, Fenech M.#, Yaschenko A.E.#, Zhao C., Neubauer M., Davis H.M., Marchi A.J., Concannon R., Keren-Keiserman A., Reuveni M., Levitsky V., Oshchepkov D., Dolgikh V., Goldshmidt A., Ascencio-Ibáñez J.T., Zemlyanskaya E., Alonso J.M*, Stepanova A.N.* (2025) EBSn, a robust synthetic reporter for monitoring ethylene responses in plants. Plant Biotechnol J doi: 10.1111/pbi.70302 (# equal contribution)
- Zhao C., Stepanova A.N., Alonso J.M. (2025) DASH: A versatile and high-capacity gene stacking system for plant synthetic biology. Plant Biotechnol J, 2025 Jun 10;. doi: 10.1111/pbi.70179
-
Neubauer M., Vollen K., Ascencio-Ibanez J.T., Hanley-Bowdoin L., Stepanova A.N., Alonso J.M. (2025) Development of modular geminivirus-based vectors for high cargo expression and gene targeting in plants. Plant Biotechnol J doi: 10.1111/pbi.70320
|
-
NSF PGRP EAGER 2528100, TRTech-PGR: Leveraging DNA ADP-ribosylation for gene editing in plants, PI: Stepanova A.N., Co-PI Alonso J.M.
- NSF IOS 2502590, Elucidating the role of local auxin biosynthesis in plant regeneration, PI: Alonso J.M., Co-PIs: Stepanova A.N., Strable J.
|
|
|
The Choudoir Lab jumps for soybeans during a late summer field sampling trip!
|
| The Choudoir Lab welcomes undergraduate researcher Lilith Dailey (Microbiology major) to the lab!
MB graduate student Adam Breister was awarded the CEFS Fellowship, and MB graduate student Bella Borerro was awarded the William Walton and Emily Inscoe Stevens Scholarship for Plant, Soil and Environmental Stewardship.
|
|
|
This September the Choudoir Lab hosted visiting scholar Denisse Fabiola Peña Tapia from Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador. We are launching a collaboration investigating the relationships between fungi and joyapa (plant native to the Andean highlands related to blueberry).
|
The Choudoir Lab enjoys a Howling Cow ice cream break to celebrate the start of the semester.
|
|
|
| The Kleiner Lab welcomes Kayla Garcia as a new undergraduate support and research student.
Members of the Kleiner Lab provided engaging science activities at two outreach events in Summer/Fall 2025:
|
|
|
Femme in STEM is an event to highlight and increase visibility of women in science careers to budding young scientists and the public. This year's event included 27 tables and engaged over 2,500 visitors at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Our table showcased microbial sciences from genomics to basic wet lab techniques, including hands on demos and challenging puzzles, which was designed and (wo)manned by lab members Jessie Maier, Olivia Mathieson, Ayesha Awan, Edeline Anthoniraj, and special guest Rachel Simoes.
|
| Jessie Maier, Olivia Mathieson, Ayesha Awan, Edeline Anthoniraj and Rachel Simoes at their display during Femme in STEM.
|
|
|
Presentations at the Wolfpack in STEM Tailgate!
|
|
The first-ever Wolfpack STEM Tailgate brought science, football, and community together in the FanZone during NC State’s home game against Campbell! The goal of this event was to make STEM fun and accessible to everyone, especially those who might not typically attend a dedicated science event. Visitors explored interactive demos, hands-on experiments, and met scientists from across NC State’s STEM community.
The tailgate was organized by Jory Weintraub, with help from Lisa Metzger, Olivia Mathieson, and Jessie Maier, who also hosted engaging tables filled with science activities and curiosity-driven challenges. Alongside many other volunteer scientists, they helped show that STEM can be as exciting as a Wolfpack touchdown!
|
|
|
International Collaboration Trip
This summer, graduate student Edeline Anthoniraj spent 6 weeks for experimental work in Germany. Edeline had the opportunity to collaborate with HYDRA, our bioplastics research partner in Germany, to explore the microbial biodegradation of bioplastics in natural environments. HYDRA specializes in testing the performance of bioplastics in real-world settings (oceans, rivers, and soils) where understanding how these materials break down is crucial in the fight against plastic pollution. By teaming up with HYDRA, our lab aims to apply multi-omic tools to uncover the metabolic pathways and microbial community dynamics that drive bioplastic degradation in diverse ecosystems. Edeline returned from her trip with several thousand samples on dry ice.
|
| Edeline's samples from her work in Germany this summer.
|
|
|
-
Pal, G., M. R. Wagner, M. Kleiner (2025). Root-secreted proteins: an underexplored component of root exudates. Trends in Plant Science Corrected Proof Published Online
-
Mordant, A., J. A. Blakeley-Ruiz, M. Kleiner (2025). Metaproteomics-based stable isotope fingerprinting links intestinal bacteria to their carbon source and captures diet-induced substrate switching. The ISME Journal 19(1):wraf127
-
Awan, A., A. Bartlett, J. A. Blakeley-Ruiz, T. Richie, C. M. Theriot, M. Kleiner (2025). Dietary protein from different sources escapes host digestion and is differentially modified by microbiota. Food & Function 16:7154
-
Mathieson, O. L., D. L. Schultz, M. S. Hunter, M. Kleiner, S. Schmitz-Esser, M. R. Doremus (2025). The ecology, evolution, and physiology of Cardinium: a widespread heritable endosymbiont of invertebrates. FEMS Microbiology Reviews fuaf031
-
Wagner, M. R. and M. Kleiner (2025). How thoughtful experimental design can empower biologists in the omics era. Nature Communications 16:7263
-
Wilson, N. J., C. M. Smith-Moore, Y. Xu, B. Edwards, C. La Hovary, K. Li, D. Aslett, M. Ji, X. Lin, S. Vintila, M. Kleiner, D. Xie, Y. Shachar-Hill, A. Grunden, and H. Sederoff (2025). In vitro demonstration and in planta characterization of a condensed, reverse TCA (crTCA) cycle. Frontiers in Plant Science 16:1556957
-
Cortés-Martín, A., C. Buttimer, J. L. Maier, C. A. Tobin, L. A. Draper, R. P. Ross, M. Kleiner, C. Hill, A. N. Shkoporov (2025). Adaptations in gut Bacteroidales facilitate stable co-existence with their lytic bacteriophages. Gut Microbes 17(1):2507775
-
Van Den Bossche, T., J. Armengaud, D. Benndorf, J. A. Blakeley-Ruiz, M. Brauer, [25 co-authors in alphabetical order including M. Kleiner], L. Li, The Metaproteomics Initiative (2025). The microbiologist’s guide to metaproteomics. iMeta e70031
-
Rajczewski, A. T., J. A. Blakeley-Ruiz, A. Meyer, S. Vintila, M. R. McIlvin, T. Van Den Bossche, B. C. Searle, T. J. Griffin, M. A. Saito, M. Kleiner, P. D. Jagtap (2025). Data-Independent Acquisition Mass Spectrometry as a Tool for Metaproteomics: Interlaboratory Comparison Using a Model Microbiome. Proteomics 25(9-10):e202400187
-
Bartlett, A., J. A. Blakeley-Ruiz, T. Richie, C. M. Theriot, M. Kleiner (2025). Large quantities of bacterial DNA and protein in common dietary protein source used in microbiome studies. Proteomics 0:e202400149
-
Blakeley-Ruiz, J. A., A. Bartlett, A. S. McMillan, A. Awan$, M. V. Walsh, A. K. Meyerhoffer, S. Vintila, J. L. Maier, T. G. Richie, C. M. Theriot, M. Kleiner (2025). Dietary protein source alters gut microbiota composition and function. The ISME Journal 19(1): wraf048
-
Petrone, B. L., A. Bartlett, S. Jiang, A. Korenek, S. Vintila, C. B. Tenekjian, W. S. Yancy Jr., L. A. David, M. Kleiner (2025). A pilot study of metaproteomics and DNA metabarcoding as tools to assess dietary intake in humans. Food & Function 16, 282 – 296
-
Garrell, A.-K., J. Cheadle, N. Crook, G. Pal, A. N. Septer, M. R. Wagner, A. E. Beck, M. Kleiner (2025). Differential metaproteomics of bacteria grown in vitro and in planta reveals functions used during growth on maize roots. bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.02.657423v1.abstract
|
The Kleiner Lab on their annual retreat in Kill Devil Hills, NC!
|
|
|
The Lyu lab welcomes Ph.D. student Callie Claiborne (Bioinformatics), Research Specialist Raymond Volpe, Undergrad Rida Tariq (Microbiology), and Visiting Researcher Marissa Duffy (UNC-Chapel Hill) to our lab.
Undergraduate, Anna Miller, received the Best Poster award at the GGA Annual Retreat!
|
|
|
Congrats to Aurora Toennisson who successfully defended her thesis in July and has moved on to a postdoc position in the Quesada lab in Plant Pathology.
This fall the Perera lab has 3 returning undergraduate researchers, Caitlyn Elliot, Ellie Salter and Kensi Bell and one new addition, N Napier!
|
|
|
Paul Frankson, Debjani Sihi and Yaxi Du (l-r) work at a soil-warming field plot in Athens, Georgia
|
| Srinivas Rao Voruganti (PhD student in Sihi Lab) was selected for the GRAD-AID for Ag program.
Praneswar Ghosh (PhD student in Sihi Lab) received the 2025 CEFS Graduate Student Fellowship and the 2025 David M. Peele PSI Graduate Student Support Award from NC PSI.
Graham Louis (PhD student in Sihi Lab) was selected as a Global Change Research Fellow for the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center.
|
|
|
Dr. Debjani Sihi received the 2025 Thomas Hilker Early Career Award for Excellence in Biogeosciences from the American Geophysical Union.
|
|
|
Wishing everyone a happy fall!
|
|
|
Manage your preferences | Opt Out using TrueRemove™
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.
|
100 Derieux Place Campus Box 7614 | Raleigh, NC 27607 US
|
|
|
This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.
|
|
|
|
