News

Two undergraduate Wentz Research Scholars will join the Cabeen Crew for the 2020-2021 school year. Eliza Kent developed her own research project to examine how micropatterned surfaces affect bacterial growth on those surfaces. Bryn Goldsmith developed her own project about the effectiveness of charcoal-containing toothpaste for whitening and protection against tooth decay. We look forward to their work with us!

Dr. Cabeen was featured on Episode 18 of the Pokes PodCAS where he talks with interviewer Jacob Longan about the novel coronavirus and other microbiology-related topics. The podcast was recorded just before coronavirus lockdowns began in earnest.

Adam Bronson was accepted into a summer research program at the UCSF, and Nina Baggett was accepted into a program at UT-Southwestern. Both of these institutions are research powerhouses, and we are proud to have students participating in these highly competitive programs. Unfortunately these programs were canceled for this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are nonetheless proud that they WOULD have been there!

CAS Student Council is pleased to announce Matthew Cabeen as the CAS Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award recipient for 2019-20! Winners of this award are nominated by students and then selected by a student committee.

We are pleased to announce that the Cabeen Lab is now NIH-funded as one of 5 inaugural labs in a new CoBRE, the Oklahoma Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunity, centered at the Oklahoma Unversity Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City and headed by Dr. Jimmy Ballard. The shared 5-year, $11M grant will support research on Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm signaling in the lab. The Wozniak Lab is also one of the inaugural labs, and with this grant more than half of MMG faculty--everyone who works on projects somehow related to health--are NIH funded. Read the press release about the grant here.

Chris Hamm and Amal Yahya both gave oral presentations at the OSU Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Symposium. Chris took first place in the competition, and Amal took third. They are making the lab proud and inspiring others!

In July our lab was awarded a 1-year NIH-funded OCRID Pilot Project Award to advance our research into mechanisms of P. aeruginosa biofilm formation. PhD student Somalisa Pan is taking the lead, joined by Julia Terrell whenever she is available.

Sarah Winburn gets a "hat trick" with a 3rd-place win among undergraduate posters in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Symposium. Julia Terrell does it too, along with Somalisa Pan--they take second in the undergrad poster competition! Well done! Plus Jake Osborne takes 2nd prize for his poster at the Wentz Research Symposium.

Our lab is proud of Nina Baggett and Adam Bronson, both of whom won this most selective designation for 2019-2020. The scholarships will support their research throughout summer 2019 and for the subsequent academic year.