The Smith Lab @ MGM

The Smith lab hosted Emma Heckenberg as the second rotation student this fall. Emma is a first-year Ph.D. student in the MGM graduate training program.

During her Smith lab rotation, Emma worked on a collaboration with the Coers lab elaborating the role of immunity-related GTPase M (IRGM) genes on tuberculosis pathogenesis. With a passion for wet lab experimentation, Emma dove into biosafety level-3 (BSL3) work, learning mouse husbandry, BSL3 safety and methods, and infected animal experimentation. Throughout her rotation, Emma collaborated with Carissa Harvest in the Miao Lab to kick start a staining protocol in the Smith lab and also garnered a new set of data tidying and exploration skills in R.

The Smith lab will miss Emma’s infectious excitement for science and wishes her well in her future rotations!

The Smith lab were excited to host Jessica Portillo as a rotation student this fall. Jessica came into the lab through the MGM graduate training program and as a Duke BioCoRE scholar.

In her Smith Lab rotation, Jessica was fearless in pursuit of learning the tools and approaches we use to answer questions about host-pathogen interactions in tuberculosis. She combined both wet and dry lab expertise by developing bioinformatic pipelines for data visualization and conducting M. tuberculosis infections in Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) conditions. Her work on “non-tolerant” Collaborative Cross strains of mice uncovered new cytokines and inflammatory pathways driving hyper-inflammation during TB infection. She has created plenty of new ideas for future follow-up! 

Jessica’s long list of rotation accomplishments includes the successful completion of a week-long BSL3 biosafety bootcamp, completion of a coding bootcamp, and submission of a fellowship application. Her dedication to BSL3 work and rigorous safety protocols led to her successful completion of the Duke BSL3 mentored training on her pathway to independence. We look forward to seeing all that Jessica will achieve at Duke!

A huge congratulations to Rachel Meade for passing her qualifying exam in July 2021. She is now an officially minted UPGG PhD candidate – CHEERS!!!

Rachel’s prelim document and outstanding presentation focused on her work investigating host-pathogen genetic and immunologic determinants of Mycobacterium tuberculosis susceptibility. A big thanks to the many department trainees who encouraged and provided feedback throughout the process and committee members Dr. David Tobin, Dr. Doug Marchuk, Dr. Craig Lowe and Dr. Dennis Ko. We are looking forward to seeing the next steps in her exciting thesis work!

The Smith Lab concluded a year of excellent rotations by hosting Margaret Gaggioli as a rotation student this spring.

Originally from southeastern Wisconsin, Margaret moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2015 for her undergraduate education. TB research was not new to her, as she spent 2.5 years in Dr. Christina Stallings’ lab as an undergraduate and post-baccalaureate researcher studying the host myeloid cell response to Mycobacteria tuberculosis infection. During her time at Duke, Margaret is interested in continuing to investigate the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, focusing on host-pathogen interactions.

Margaret took a new angle on her rotation project and made her mark on the direction of investigation. Margaret studied host genetic determinants of tuberculosis tolerance among Collaborative Cross mice and began to ask questions about inflammatory signaling and cachexia during M. tuberculosis infection. After completing her training in the BSL-3 laboratory, she cultured spleens to quantify bacterial burden and conduct QTL mapping to identify causal host genes. After her rotation, Margaret will be joining the Ko lab, and we look forward to all of the things she will accomplish during her time at Duke!

The Smith Lab enjoyed hosting Emily Engeman as a rotation student this spring.

A local to the area, Emily attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh for her undergraduate education, where she studied biology and minored in business administration. After graduating in 2017, Emily moved to Washington, D.C. to research HIV in Dr. Sodsai Tovanabutra’s lab at the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research (WRAIR). Her primary research focuses involved investigating HIV mutations and coreceptor usage. In 2019, Emily accepted an ORISE fellowship at WRAIR to work with Dr. Anna Jacobs. In Emily’s fellowship program, she worked to develop a robotic biofilm assay and researched phage antibiotic synergy in vitro and in a mouse wound model. Now pursuing her Ph.D. at Duke, Emily is excited to study host pathogen interactions and investigate potential therapeutics.

How can a host with very low levels of infection look and act like a host with severe TB? This is a question Emily set out to answer in her rotation, which centered on host genetic determinants of tuberculosis tolerance in the Collaborative Cross panel. Throughout her rotation, she studied the immunological dynamics and mechanisms of disease tolerance in mammalian hosts while completing her training in the BSL-3 laboratory. We look forward to seeing the awesome scientific questions she’ll pursue throughout her graduate studies at Duke!

The Smith Lab is excited to virtually welcome the 2021 UPGG, MGM, and CMB recruits!

Recruits that are interested in working on one of the world’s deadliest pathogens should feel free to reach out to us to chat science, lab culture, and life in RDU!

In this first year while getting our Mycobacterial and mouse work up and going, we are thrilled to have been a part of some cool work with our MGM friends, including a new SARS-CoV2 BioRxiv preprint with the awesome Heaton Lab and co.

Also check out a beautiful Trends in Microbiology review led by Jeff Bourgeois from the Ko Lab, where we dive into current trends in defining host-bacterial interactions at the genome-wide level, including screens that harness CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and natural genetic variation. So whether you are into viral or bacterial pathogenesis or host resistance, these MGM collabs have you covered. Check them out!

 

 

The Smith Lab was excited to host Aruna Menon as a rotation student this fall.

Aruna received her B.S. in Microbiology from UC Berkeley in 2018. During this time, she fell in love with the diversity of microbes as well as the tools used to understand microbial communities. Through her undergraduate education and years as a lab tech, she solidified her love of science and research.  As she begins her Ph.D. at Duke, she is excited to learn more about how chemistry, genetics, and bacterial physiology intersect to play a role in infectious disease.

Aruna’s joint rotation between the Smith Lab and the Tobin Lab down the hall allowed her to study of tuberculosis in both mouse and zebrafish models. Throughout her rotation, she studied macrophage recruitment and the ESX secretion system in mycobacteria. We look forward to seeing all that she will accomplish during her time at Duke!