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An intensive six-and-a-half-week course for graduate or postdoctoral students, as well as established investigators, who want to become competent in microbiological techniques for working with a broad range of microbes, and in approaches for recognizing the metabolic, phylogenetic, and genomic diversity of cultivated and as yet uncultivated bacteria. Limited to 20 students.
The course is designed primarily for scientists with a substantial background in microbiology who want to isolate, cultivate, and initiate research programs with a diverse range of microbes. It emphasizes that the great strength of microbiology lies in the diversity of microbial types that can be exploited for basic research. The course will emphasize nature as the source of microorganisms for research; thus, beginning and advanced students have equal chances to make discoveries. The course is open to all scientists who have a strong interest in microbes and their activities (previous students have included biochemists, ecologists, environmental engineers, oceanographers, geneticists, geologists, and limnologists).
Students will isolate, cultivate, and experiment with characteristic microbial types from various marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats, including those microbes living symbiotically with animals and plants. Emphasis will be on the isolation and cultivation of organisms that are distinguished by their phylogenetic, physiological, and morphological properties. Techniques for cultivation of strict anaerobes and phototrophs will be emphasized. Examples of microbial types that will be isolated are methanogens, acetogens, sulfate-reducing anaerobes, fermentative anaerobes and both oxygenic and anoxygenic phototrophs, as well as bacteria involved in the geochemical cycling of various metals. Magnetic bacteria, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, spirochetes, and luminescent bacteria will also be studied. A laboratory component on molecular approaches to microbial diversity will instruct students to use approaches of molecular phylogeny and comparative genomics. This will involve isolation and amplification of 16S rRNA genes as phylogenetic markers and the use of computer software programs to analyze nucleic acid sequences and to construct phylogenetic trees. As the capstone activity of the course, participants will conduct an individual research project of their own design.
This course is supported in part by grants from the National Science
Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation.
2008 Faculty and Lecturers:
Rudolf Amann, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Douglas Bartlett, University of California, San Diego
Carl Bauer, Indiana University
Joshua Blodgett, Harvard Medical School
John Breznak, Michigan State University
Donald Bryant, Pennsylvania State University
Colleen Cavanuagh, Harvard University
Ed DeLong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Des Marais, NASA
Ford Doolittle, Dalhousie University
Nicole Dubilier, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Sonya Dyhrman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Paul Gilna, University of California, San Diego
Pete Greenberg, University of Washington
Robert Haselkorn, University of Chicago
James Imlay, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Roberto Kolter, Harvard Medical School
Elizabeth Kujawinski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Lars Larsen, Unisense
Mary Lidstrom, University of Washington
Derek Lovley, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dianne Newman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jorg Overmann, Ludwig-Maximillans-Universitat Munchen
Norm Pace, University of Colorado
Kit Pogliano, University of California, San Diego
Mecky Pohlschroeder, University of Pennsylvania
Martin Polz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Micheal Rother, Johann Wolfang Goethe-University Frankfurt
Edward Ruby, University of Wisconsin
Patrick Schloss, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Rudy Sloup, Michigan State University
Karl Stetter, University Regensburg
Curtis Suttle, University of British Columbia
Tracy Teal, Michigan State University
Rolf Thauer, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology
David Valentine, University of California, San Diego
Rachel Whitaker, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Michael Wiser, Michigan State University
Ralph Wolfe, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Stephen Zinder, Cornell University
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