Micro Student Michelle Michelsen

Don't take our word for it, hear a personal account from one of our students about why science is better at Oregon State. Hear what Michelle has to say about microbiology and how it allowed her to combine her love of the ocean and studying the "little guys," bacteria, that[...]

DaVinci Days Event

Last weekend the College of Science provided a full day of community outreach for the 2018 DaVinci Days. Activities from Microbiology included strawberry DNA, fish parasites and cloning. See photos by Greg Bal.

The Next Generation of Microbiologists

The Helen Alford Hays Microbiology Scholarship: "Prepare Your Minds," Dr. Charles Hays, a Canadian science journalist, advised students during the annual scholarship luncheon. He is the son of Helen Alford Hays, a long-time microbiology instructor and advisor from 1955-1981.

Nicole Hams likes to ask "What If?"

Nicole Hams is a postdoc in the Department of Microbiology with Professor and Department Head, Dr. Jerri Bartolomew . Her project focuses on parasitic diseases in salmon and her interests and background are varied and interesting.

Dr. Bruslind Receives Open Education Award

Congratulations to Linda Bruslind for winning the 2018 Open Education Award . Dr. Linda Bruslind, Microbiology, senior instructor II and lead advisor in the Department of Microbiology in the College of Science received an award by Extended Campus for development of an online textbook, "Introduction to Microbiology". This online textbook[...]

Dynamic Duo Join Microbiology

Dr. Maude David and Dr. Kenton Hokanson have recently joined the Department of Microbiology. Dr. David has a joint appointment in the College of Pharmacy and will focus on developing undergraduate curricula in bioinformatics. Dr. Hokanson is an instructor in Microbiology and BioHealth Sciences and will help develop an electrophysiology[...]

Statistical Innovations Help Decode the Human Microbiome

Dr. Yuan Jiang, Dr. Duo Jiang and Dr. Thomas Sharpton (Microbiology/Statistics) were awarded a prestigious four year $770K grant by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and NIH to study the human microbiome. This project will advance scientific understanding of the functions and operations of microbiomes by developing statistical[...]

Hanby Middle School Students Get Hands-On Lessons in Microbiology

Hanby Middle School students get hands on lessons in microbiology. Photos and Story by Christien Laber During a recent visit to OSU, the Hanby Girls STEM group interacted with members of the Department of Microbiology to learn about life at the microscopic level. As part of their two-day tour[...]

Journalist at Sea

NASA-NAAMES Mission : Dr. Kim Halsey, OSU Microbiologist, Dr. Cleo Martin-Davies, OSU Postdoc, and Dr. Luis Bolanos, OSU Postdoc are headed for the North Atlantic along with 29 other scientists are onboard the ATLANTIS on a research vessel operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The purpose to investigate the ocean[...]

Can Coral Microbes Protect Reefs from Climate Change?

Scientists are investigating the role microbiomes play in coral health, trying to identify those microbial traits that make coral reefs resilient as ocean temperatures rise and bleaching events accelerate. One group, the Global Coral Microbiome Project, led by OSU Microbiologist Dr. Rebecca Vega-Thurber is performing a global survey of reefs.[...]

A Cure for Coral Reefs

By pretty much any measure, Vega Thurber (Microbiologist, Oregon State University) (Becky, to anyone who's met her at least once) is a badass marine biologist. She weathers bouts of seasickness like an old salt: “Take Bonine twice a day,” she advises, before noting dispassionately that “sometimes you end up barfing[...]

Dr. Michael Kent Receives Zebrafish Award

Dr. Michael Kent was presented with the Outstanding Steward of Zebrafish Award by the Zebrafish Husbandry Association (ZHA) at the annual meeting at Aquaculture America 2018 in Las Vegas in recognition of his many years providing training and research in support of the health and welfare of laboratory zebrafish. The[...]

Oregon's "Blue Economy" Bolstered by Longstanding Partnership for Fish Health

Oregon's "Blue Economy" Bolstered by Longstanding Partnership for Fish Health : A longstanding and fruitful collaboration that benefits fish health and sustainable economic growth in Oregon was recently reinforced by a five-year, $404,000 renewal of the Fish Health Graduate Research Fellowship in Microbiology at Oregon State University by the Oregon[...]

SACNAS National Stem Conference

With help from the department, undergraduate Aimee Nguyen attended the SACNAS National Stem Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in October. SACNAS stands for Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. This professional society's goal is to promote diversity and help minorities advance[...]

A Grand Unified Theory of Unhealthy Microbiomes

A microbiological version of the Anna Karenina principle is a new paradigm suggested by Dr. Rebecca Vega-Thurber, Dr. Jesse Zaneveld, and Graduate Student Ryan McMinds--one that has key implications for a more personalized approach to antibiotic therapy, management of chronic disease and other aspects of medical care. The principle gets[...]

New Research Methodology to Study SAR202

OSU Microbiology senior Michelle Michelsen, is spending a large part of her summer at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences conducting research for Dr. Stephen Giovannoni, on SAR202 bacterioplankton. She participated in her first research cruise on the RV Atlantic Explorer in July at the BATS site which is 80[...]

Diatoms Have Sex After All

New research shows a species of diatom, a single-celled algae, thought to be asexual does reproduce sexually, and scientists learned it's a common compound - ammonium - that puts the ubiquitous organism in the mood. The findings, published today in PLOS One , may be a key step toward greater[...]

Warming Temperatures could Trigger Starvation, Extinctions in Deep Oceans

Biodiversity in many of these areas is defined by the meager amount of food reaching the seafloor and over the next 80 plus years, in certain parts of the world, that amount of food will be cut in half, said Dr. Andrew Thurber, an OSU marine ecologist and co-author of[...]

New Phytoplankton Groups Favor Warmer Oceans

One of the phytoplankton lineages appears to be an entirely new group of phytoplankton. MBARI researchers, working with OSU's Stephen Giovannoni, concluded this single-celled protistan group took a separate evolutionary path from the haptophyte algae, which arose between 1 billion and 637 million years ago. Full Article

Methane Munching Microbes

Assessing the Southern Ocean's Lines of Defense Against a Potent Greenhouse Gas Antarctic Sun The aquarium in McMurdo Station's Crary Lab was full of some seriously odorous dirt. "If they smell horrible, that means it's a very successful sediment sample," said Dr. Andrew Thurber, Department of Microbiology, OSU.