Department of Microbiology and Immunology: Dr. Alma Dal Co

The Department of Microbiology and Immunology presents a seminar:

Dr. Alma Dal Co
Postdoctoral Fellow
Harvard University

Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Time: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: LSC 1510

Title: Spatial Organization of Organisms and Functions in Bacterial Communities

Abstract: Communities of interacting microbes perform fundamental processes, from cycling the elements to shaping health and disease of animals and humans. The processes these microbial communities perform arise from a dense network of interactions between individual organisms inside the community. Many of these communities are spatially structured, thus interaction occur mostly between organisms close in space. Therefore, the spatial arrangement of different organisms determines the interactions that occur between individuals and therefore the processes that the whole community performs. I investigate the link between the spatial organization of organisms and the processes that the community performs. More specifically, I investigate how the activity of single cells and their interactions with neighbouring cells affects community-level processes. To this end, I measure the spatial scale at which cells interact metabolically inside simple synthetic communities, and the way these communities distribute different biological functions across different cells. I use microfluidic techniques to measure properties of single-cell, such as their growth and their phenotype, and I use mathematical modeling to understand how individual-level properties determine community-level properties. 

Hosted by: Dr. Carolina Tropini