News

PhD student Chris Hamm and AMS student Sarah Winburn collaborated to publish "Using Fluorescence in Biotechnology Instruction to Visualize Antibiotic Resistance & DNA" in The American Biology Teacher. (Find a link to the paper in our Publications.) The paper describes a low-cost apparatus to image fluorescent bacterial colonies using a smartphone camera. The apparatus, which is based on police-grade portable flashlights, can also be used for DNA gel imaging. Congratulations Chris and Sarah!

After an internal competition, Dr. Cabeen was selected as OSU's first-ever institutional nominee for the prestigious Pew Biomedical Scholars program. Invited institutions are allowed to nominate one junior faculty member for the nationwide selection process.

Professor Cabeen received the University-wide OSU Excellence in Advising Award from the Provost in Spring 2021 to recognize his commitment to undergraduate and graduate advising.

Recent graduate Nina Baggett, who is staying an extra semester following her Dec. 2021 graduation before heading off to graduate school, was awarded 1st place among undergraduate oral presentations at the 2021 MMG Departmental Symposium on April 23. Nina's presentation was titled "An Alternative Pathway for Strong Pyocin Expression in P. aeruginosa". Congratulations Nina!

Professor Cabeen received the Golden Torch Award from the OSU Mortar Board on March 28. The award recognizes outstanding faculty members who have made significant contributions toward the success of students and is given annually to one faculty member from each College at OSU.

Undergraduate researcher Sid Bush took 1st place among undergraduate oral presentations for his presentation, "The relative fitness of the stress-sensing RsbR paralogs in the Bacillus subtilis stressosome in various environmental stressors", at the 2021 Missouri and Missouri Valley ASM Branch Meeting, which was held virtually this year. Congratulations Sid, and well-deserved!

The Rice Business Plan competition is the premier STEM-based competition in the country.  First place is $350,000 in investment capital, $100,000 for second place, and $50,000 for third place.  20 additional cash prizes are provided.  Over the past 20 years the 700 teams that have participated have raised $2.67 billion in funding.  You may recall that a couple of years ago, Mito Materials Solutions, an OSU student startup, place 2^nd in the competition.  That’s a distinction that we’re proud of to this day.

We don’t submit an entry each year, but we did this year—Paldara.  Paldara is an OSU student startup that has worked primarily with David Thomison.   Paldara Pharmaceuticals is led by Beau Blanchard, MBA and MSE, William Colton, Master’s in Microbiology and Cabeen Lab alumnus, and Jacob Miller, an undergraduate finance major.   The company is developing an innovative microbial gel coating to be used with existing catheters to reduce urinary tract infections (UTI) by 99 percent.   The near eradication of UTI will lower health care costs and improve patient quality of life.  Note—like Mito Paldara consists of MBA and STEM students (the two principals)—the combination that has produced our best startups.

This year 440 teams applied for Rice and 54 were selected to compete.  Now, for the fun. Click on the link shown below and fast-forward to about the 2:30 mark.  The person you’ll see speaking is the director of the competition.  Spoiler alert—Paldara made the top 54.  What’s interesting is the peer group of schools that Paldara is part of.  This speaks to how talented Paldara’s founders are, but also how far our program has come.  In terms of business plan competitions, our peers are the schools you’ll see on the screen in a minute.  Enjoy!!!    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBscPIAdXfA&feature=youtu.be

We take teaching seriously, and our PhD student Rabi Khadka was named the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Outstanding TA for 2019-2020. The runner up was Chris Hamm, another of our PhD students. Well done fellas!

The Cabeen lab was one of 8 labs at OSU to win OCAST awards from the State of Oklahoma in 2020. The three-year award will support our studies of a DNA-binding protein that is involved in biofilm formation by P. aeruginosa. Our proposal was ranked 4th out of some 130 submissions!

OSU article at https://news.okstate.edu/articles/communications/2020/state_agency_boosts_funding_for_osu_researchers.html