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Research Participants
Fall Semester 2021
Layla Abbud
Layla is a junior biotechnology major in the honors college. Layla is purifying endolysins from pseudomonas phages to test against biofilm formation.
Stephanie Friend
Stephanie is a junior biology major in the honors college. Stephanie is expanding the horizons of our group, exploring the applications of artificial intelligence in medicine with Dr. Frana and Dr. Davis.
Jessica is a senior biotechnology major. She is working on a bacteriology project to isolate the causative agent of pink eye in cattle, Moraxella Bovis. After isolation, Jessica will be working to test for antibiotic resistance and hunt for bacteriophages.
Jessica Garth
Lauren Knabe
Lauren is a senior ISAT major working on a capstone with Jack Richardson.
They are studying biofilm and antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Paulina Onisko
Paulina is a junior biotechnology major in the honors college. She is interested in synergy between different species of Bordetella in attaching to a turkey tracheal tissue culture.
Jack Richardson
Jack is a senior ISAT major working on a capstone with Lauren .
They are studying biofilm and antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Easton is a senior biotechnology major. Easton is working with Pseudomonas syringae to work on finding a novel bacteriophage in order to assess known plants diseases.
Easton Rupe
Kiera is a senior Biotechnology major and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies minor. She is investigating the role silver nanoparticles play in regulating gene expression in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms for her honors thesis project.
Kiera Schwarz
Lindsay is a junior biotechnology major in the honors college. Lindsay is working in a bacteriology group differentiating between Bordetella avium and Bordatella hinzii that were isolated from turkeys in the Shenandoah Valley.
Lindsay Zirkle
Spring Semester 2021
Layla Abbud
Layla is a sophomore biotechnology major in the honors college. Layla and Will are purifying endolysins from pseudomonas phages that could be used as antibiotics.
Noah Brown
Noah is a senior biotechnology major. He is planning to enter a PhD program after graduation. Noah is working in a bacteriology group differentiating between Bordetella avium and Bordatella hinzii that were isolated from turkeys in the Shenandoah Valley.
Stephanie Friend
Stephanie is a sophomore biology major in the honors college. Stephanie is in a bacteriology exploration group working to identify different species of Bacillus.
Jessica Garth
Jessica is a senior biotechnology major. Jessica is in a bacteriology exploration group working to identify different species of Bacillus.
William Hajjar
Will is a senior biotechnology major. Will and Layla are purifying endolysins from pseudomonas phages that could be used as antibiotics.
Lauren Knabe
Lauren is a junior ISAT major working on a capstone with Jack. They are looking at the problem of antibiotic resistance as influenced by biofilms and quorum sensing.
Rian Kuhn
Rian is a junior biotechnology major. Rian is in a bacteriology exploration group working to identify different species of Bacillus.
Paulina Onisko
Paulina is a sophomore biotechnology major in the honors college. She is interested in synergy between different species of Bordetella in attaching to a turkey tracheal tissue culture.
Jack Richardson
Jack is a junior ISAT major. Jack and Lauren are looking at the problem of antibiotic resistance as influenced by biofilms and quorum sensing.
Easton Rupe
Easton is a junior biotechnology major. Easton is working with Kiera on biofilm formation by Bortella hinzii, using fluorescence staining and microscopy.
Archer Sang
Archer is a senior biotechnology and physics double major. Archer is working in a bacteriology group differentiating between Bordetella avium and Bordatella hinzii that were isolated from turkeys in the Shenandoah Valley.
Kiera Schwarz
Kiera is a junior biotechnology major in the honors college. Kiera is working with Easton on biofilm formation by Bortella hinzii, using fluorescence staining and microscopy.
Lindsay Zirkle
Lindsay is a sophomore biotechnology major in the honors college. Lindsay is working in a bacteriology group differentiating between Bordetella avium and Bordatella hinzii that were isolated from turkeys in the Shenandoah Valley.
Spring Semester 2020
Layla Abbud
Layla is a second semester freshman biotechnology major who is following up on phages from Viral Discovery to verify findings and identify unknown bacterial hosts. She will shadow other students to see what experiments are going on.
Paulina Onisko
Paulina is a second semester freshman biotechnology major doing phage hunting with Will searching for viruses infection Streptococcus bacteria. She will also explore other work in the lab.
Stephanie Friend
Stephanie is a second semester freshman biotechnology major. She is observing some projects, including the work with biofilms and will shadow other students on their work.
Archer Sang
Archer is a junior biotechnology and physics double major. She has isolated two phages that infect different Bacillus species. She is also using bioinformatics to search for endolysins in phages infecting various species of Pseudomonas.
Alexis Schneider
Alexis is a senior biology and Independent Scholars double major. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary honors capstone examining the student-professor relationship and how it impacts females students' decision to leave STEM majors.
Fall Semester 2019
Johnathan Osu
Johnanthan is a senior biotechnology major, annotating a phage that was discovered last year, and he also isolated his own Bacillus thuringiensis Kurstaki phage. He is preparing a clonal population of phages for further analyses.
Simon Anderson
Simon is a sophomore biotechnology major. He is doing a thorough annotation of his own phage, PlaquesPlease, after which he will draft a paper for publication.
William Hajjar
Will is a junior biotechnology major. He is searching milk from cows with mastitis for viruses that infect Streptococcus bacteria.
Easton Rupe
Easton is a sophomore biotechnology major. He is annotating his own phage discovered last year, Stalingrad. He is working with Noah on the nanoparticle project.
Noah Brown
Noah is a sophomore biotechnology major. He is completing a phage annotation that has been challenging. The next step will be writing a paper. He is working with Easton studying whether nanoparticles can be shown to kill E. coli.
Tiyam Assadpour
Tiyam is a sophomore Biotechnology major. He is doing bioinformatic anaylsis of potential gene expression in Bacillus phages. He is also analyzing the bacteriophage he isloated last fall.
Akaash will graduate in May with a biotechnology degree. He has chosen an Pseudomonas phage endolysin after analyzing the proteins from 5 unique P. putida phages discovered at JMU. He will express and purify the protein and test for activity against Pseudomonas species.
Akaash Patel
Mara is a senior biology major. She is interested in bacterial response to stress. She is using biofilm formation for a model to test effective stress.
Mara Gaykema
Rachel Persinger
Rachel is a senior biology major. She has found a bacteriophage that infects Pseudomonas aeruginosa. She is annotating this phage and will present this work at MICROBE 2020 in Chicago in June. She is also writing her honors thesis on her work.
2018 - 2019 Academic Year
Jackson McNeal
Zach Sevison
Akaash Patel
Mara Gaykema
Jackson is a senior ISAT major. Jackson works with Zach using bioinformatics to study endolysins from bacteriophages.
Zach is a senior ISAT major. Zach along with Jackson uses bioinformatics to study endolysins from bacteriophages.
Mara is a senior biology major. She is interested in bacteria response to stress. She is using biofilm formation for a model to test effective stress.
Akaash is a senior biotechnology major. He is continuing the work on vaccine development for Bordetella Avium. Akaash works with William to differentiate two species of Bordetella from Turkeys.
Rachel is a senior honors biology major. Currently, she is testing Pseudomonas putida phages in an effort to obtain phages against that infect P. aeruginosa clinical isolates.
Rachel Persinger
Tiyam Assadpour
Tiyam is a freshman Biotechnology major. Along with Simon, Noah, Katelyn, and Easton are continuing the analyses of bacteriophages isolated in Viral Discovery classes at JMU
Noah Brown
Noah is a sophomore Biotechnology major. Along with Simon, Tiyam, Katelyn, and Easton are continuing the analyses of bacteriophages isolated in Viral Discovery classes at JMU
William Hajjar
William is a sophomore Biotechnology major. William works with Akaash working on methods to differentiate two species of Bordetella from turkeys.
Letu Kassa
Letu is a junior Biotechnology major. She annotated a Bacilus phage discovered in 2016 and is preparing the information for a publication
Easton Rupe
Easton is a freshman Biotechnology major. Along wit Simon, Tiyam, Katelyn, and Noah are continuing the analyses of bacteriophages isolated in Viral Discovery classes at JMU
Emily Williams
Emily is a senior Biotechnology major. She is identifying environmental cultured bacterial isolates from frogs in Brunei, a small country on the island of Borneo.
Katelyn Matney
Katelyn is a sophomore Biotechnology major. Katelyn along with Simon, Tiyam, Noah, and Easton are continuing the analyses of bacteriophages isolated in Viral Discovery classes at JMU
Simon Anderson
Simon is a freshman Biotechnology major. Simon along with Easton, Tiyam, Katelyn, and Noah are continuing the analyses of bacteriophages isolated in Viral Discovery classes at JMU.
2017- 2018 Academic Year
Jackson McNeal
Jackson is a junior ISAT major. Jackson works with Zach using bioinformatics to study endolysins from bacteriophages.
Zach Sevison
Zach is a junior ISAT major. Zach along with Jackson uses bioinformatics to study endolysins from bacteriophages.
Clare Ravenburg
Claire is a freshmen honors biotechnology major. She is working in phage discovery and genomics.
Mara Gaykema
Akaash Patel
Jennica Pesino
Mara is a junior biology major. She is interested in bacteria response to stress. She is using biofilm formation for a model to test effective stress.
Akaash is a junior biotechnology major. He is continuing the work on vaccine development for Bordetella Avium
Jennica is a senior biotechnology major. She is using bioinformatics to study endolysins from bacteriophages.
Haley Alder
Rachel Carson
Arissa Gordillo
Haley is a senior Health Sciences major aspiring to a graduate degree in Public Health upon graduation. She is currently working on a phage genome annotation.
Rachel is a senior ISAT major in the honors program. Her goal is to identify the cell surface protein to which Bacillus bacteriophage attach. She is applying to PhD programs in Microbiology.
Arissa is a senior biotechnology major. She is using CRISPER-Cas9 systems to create mutants in Bordetella avium.
Andy Huang
Andy is senior Biotechonology major. Currently he is annotating a Bacillus bacteriophage genome. He is also comparing genomes of new bordetella isolates from turkeys.
Kevin Loftus
Kevin is a senior ISAT major in the honors program. He is continuing to use the bioinformatic tools to anlayze Bordetella pertusis that have been isolated from vaccinated patients who had whooping cough, specifically focusing on single nucleotide polymorphisms.
Hannah Clark
Alex Lovrinic
Alex is a senior Biology major in the honors program. She is using biochemical and genetic information to identify new isolates from turkey respiratory disease outbreaks.
Noelle Luis
Carly Neville
Rachel Persinger
​Rachel is a sophmore honors biology major. Currently, she is testing Pseudomonas putida phages in an effort to obtain phages against that infect P. aeruginosa clinical isolates.
Noelle is an ISAT major. Her senior project is to develop a dual vaccine for the treatment of poultry and human disease.
Carly is a senior sociology major.
With great persistence, she has worked through the software barriers in order to analyze sequence output from Minion sequencer.
2016- 2017 Academic Year
Rachel was a senior Honors Biotechnology Major. Her work was on developing a dual vaccine for the treatment of poultry and human disease.
Rachel Korba
Rachel Carson
Rachel was a junior Honors ISAT major this year. She worked on isolating and analyzing bacteriophage that infect streptomyces sp.
Hannah was a junior ISAT major. She was isolating soil bacteria and their cognate phages that impact them.
Hannah Clark
Madison is a Health Sciences Major and graduated in December 2016. She worked to identify new isolates of a turkey pathogen causing bordetellosis.
Madison Himelright
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Carly is a junior Sociology major. She has worked on comparative genomics of bordetella pertusis. She also worked
on purifying endolysins, proteins that lise bacterial cells.
Carly Neville
Noelle is a junior ISAT major. Her work is in developing a dual vaccine for the treatment of poultry and human disease.
Noelle Luis
Andyis a rising BioTech major. He is interested in biofilms which communities of bacteria that adhere to services. This property of bacteria could play a role in disease causation.
Andy Huang
Alex is an honors biology major. Her work is in identification of new isolates from turkey respiratory disease outbreaks.
Alex Lovrinic
Kevin is an honors ISAT major and a rising senior. He is using bioinformatic tools to anlayze Bordetella pertusis that have been isolated from vaccinated patients who had whooping cough.
Kevin Loftus
Arissa is a rising senior in Biotech. She is interested in CRISPER-Cas9 systems for making mutations in bacteria.
Arissa Gordillo
2015- 2016 Academic Year
Oliver is a 2016 ISAT graduate. His senior project focused on "Development of a PCR virus detection method for coliforms in water". He was the winner of the "Methodology" award.
Oliver Allen
Kim is a Senior biotech major (2017). She worked on the cloning and expression of lysis genes from phages.
Kim Eldridge
Greg is an ISAT major and Philosophy minor (2017). He has worked on cloning and expression of lysis genes from phages
Greg Glasgow
Laith graduated in 2016 in biotechnology. He did independent research on cloning and expression of lysis genes from phages. He is currently a Ph. D student at Texas A&M.
Laith Harb
Samantha graduated in 2016. She focused on the identification of new isolates from turkeys and searching for phages of Neisseria gonorrhea
Samantha Johnson
Bryan is a Biology major and 2016 graduate. His research included comparative genomics of Bordetella pertussis isolates from Virginia.
Bryan Nguyen
Sarah is a Geographic Science major (2018). She studied a host range in bioinformatics of 4 Bacillus phages.
Sarah Nutbrown
​June is a biotech major who graduated in 2016. Her research included comparative genomics of Bordetella pertussis isolates.
June Qiong
2014- 2015 Academic Year
Joseph graduated in 2016 as a biotechnology honors major. He developed a heterologous vaccine strain for Clostridium infection in poultry.
Joseph Bannister
Dennis graduated from JMU in 2015. He was interested in bioinformatics of Bacillus phages.
Dennis Churchin
Alex graduated in 2016. Ongoing research in cloning and expression of lysis genes from phages.
Alex Clare
Christophe graduated in 2015 in Biotechnology. His research included Tricistronic Lenti-Viral Vector Construction using Scar-less DNA Assembly Methods and Web-based Software j5 to Help Study GRK4. He received recognition at the JMU Honors Day celebration. Christophe has worked in the lab since 2012.
Christophe Langouet
Morgan worked with the microarray project and Bordetella vaccine group. She graduated in December 2015 and received the Outstanding Biology graduate award.
Morgan Pate
McKenzie Quinn graduated in 2015 with a biology major. She studied various aspects of phage biology and spearheaded "Isolation and characterization of Bacillus Bacteriophages with Unusual, Broad Host Range Capabilities".
McKenzie Quinn
Kat graduated in 2015 with a degree in biotechnology. She worked on determining the host range of BAcillus phages. She is currently working at the Walter Reid Army Instituteof Research.
Kat Umayam
Christopher graduated in December 2014. He worked in protein purification in the Bordetella avium. He is currently pursuing his Masters in biodefense at George Mason University.
Christopher Lien
2013- 2014 Academic Year
An honors biology student who graduated in 2016. Joe worked on searching for phages of Bordetella bronchiseptica. He was also awarded an internship with National Institute of Health (NIH).
Joe Bannister
Alexis was a Health Sciences major who graduated in 2014. She focused on searching for phages of Neisseria gonorrhea.
Alexis Brouillette
Carly graduated with Honors in Biotechnology in 2014. Her research included “Cloning a gene from Campylobacter into Bordetella avium to create a heterologous vaccine”. Carly won the Hillcrest Scholarship for research in summer 2013.
Carly Starke
Tate is a biotechnology Honors major. He graduated in 2014. Hw was a finalist for the Hillcrest Scholarship and was invited to intern at Cambridge University in summer, 2013. He has prepared a manuscript that is being reviewed by the authors now. He is currently a PhD student at University of Texas.
Tate Burkholder
Brandon completed a bioinformatics project as his ISAT senior project as well. He is an ISAT studrnt and graduated in 2015 with honors. Brandon is currently working in Washington, DC.
Brandon Carter
Taryn graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree(s) in Biology in 2014. Her honors research included a methicillin resistance project. She is currently a Med student at SUNY Stony Brooke School of Medicine.
Taryn Boyle
2012- 2013 Academic Year
Andy graduated in 2013. He was a biotechnology major whos research included varoius aspoects of phage biology as well as follow-up studies on Bacillus bacteriophages. He completed graduate school at University of Georgia.
Andy Montgomery
Annie graduated in 2013 with a nursing degree. She worked on follow-up studies on Bacillus bacteriophages and various aspects of phage biology.
Annie Schindler
Jenna Lim
Jenna, a biology major graduated in 2013. She and Emily Waffle collaborated on gene expression in Bordetella avium.
Rion Cain
Rion graduated in 2013 with a biotechnology degree. He researched various aspects of phage biology in addition to performing follow-up studies on Bacillus bacteriophages.
Russell Green
Russell was a biotechnology student and graduated in 2013. He won the award for highest honer in the Biotechnology major in 2013. His research was on "Development of a heterologous vaccine strain of Bordetella avium".
Emily Waffle
Emily graduated in 2013 and was a biotechnology majour. He stucent research included gene expression in Bordetella avium. Emily currently serves as a crime scene technician for the Charleston, SC police department.
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