Students Win Awards at Microbiology Conference

In March 2021, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences biology faculty member Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D. co-organized the 2021 Florida and Southeastern Branches of the American Society for Microbiology Joint Virtual Meeting. This meeting was well attended by microbiology researchers from across the southeastern region of the United States.  Garcia and fellow biology faculty member Robert Smith, Ph.D. attended the virtual conference to support their research students who gave presentations.

Garcia mentored Chloe Barreto-Massad, a ninth grade student at the American Heritage School, in her research project entitled, “Using antiSMASH to Compare Antimicrobial Genes of Commensal E. coli (Normal Flora) to Pathogenic E. coli” who was awarded second place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation. Garcia also mentored NSU undergraduate biology major, Sukriti Prashar, who was awarded third place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation for her presentation entitled, “Characterizing the mechanism of inhibition displayed by imidocarb dipropionate on Yersinia pestis.”

Smith mentored graduate students Laura Garcia-Dieguez who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Periodic spatial disturbance of biofilms modulates expression of quorum sensing virulence genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa” and Ivana Barraza who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Increasing the frequency of periodic spatial disturbance decreases surface attachment protein expression in Staphylococcus aureus.” Smith also mentored undergraduate students Camryn Pajon, Taniya Mariah and Brandon Toscan in their research poster presentation entitled, “Periodically disturbing the spatial structure of a microbial community composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus affects its composition” and undergraduate students Estefania Marin Meneses and Gabriela Diaz Tang who won second place for their poster presentation entitled, “Growth efficiency as a determinant of the inoculum effect.”

This year’s meeting included a Microbiology Art Contest with the theme “Microbes Shape our World”.  NSU graduate student in the Masters in Biological Sciences program, Laura Garcia-Dieguez, won First Runner Up for her artwork entitled, “Our World.”