Department of Plant & Microbial Biology Newsletter – Fall 2024

‘The Scoop’ from the Department Head

With the start of a new academic year, we were delighted to kick off the semester with our annual fall ice cream social. This event brought together faculty, staff, and students, providing a lovely atmosphere to meet new members of our Plant Biology community and reconnect with familiar faces. It was a perfect opportunity to gather together and share excitement for the year ahead. We look forward to another year of growth, discovery, and collaboration as we embark on new research projects, coursework, and departmental activities. Here’s to a fantastic year ahead!

– Bob Franks, Department Head

In Memoriam: Latricia Musgrove

We honor the memory of Latricia Musgrove, a valued member of our academic community, who passed away in September. Her time with us was marked by her dedication, intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, and collaborative spirit. Latricia joined the MMB Program in August 2024, and in this short time has made a lasting impact on those around her. Her passing has deeply affected our community, as she already formed close bonds with her peers, mentors, and professors.

Our thoughts are with Latricia’s family, friends, and everyone who was fortunate to know her.

Microbiology Graduate Program (MGP)

The Microbiology Graduate Program (MGP) is excited to welcome all the new Microbiology graduate students into the department and welcome back our current MB graduate students.

We have 12 new students to introduce to the department. 

• Areej Alharbi
• Edeline Anthoniraj
• Sydney Baker
• William (Dexter) Boldog
• Isabella Borrero
• Niaz Goodbee
• Kendall Godwin
• Jenna Kraemer
• Anuja Pimplapure
• Amanda Rice
• Michael Welsh
• Kory Yarborough

Plant Biology Graduate Program

Welcome to all our new PB Graduate Students and welcome back to all our current students! We have six new PB Graduate Students.

• Ellis Ryan Bosarge
• Gretchen Perez Castillo
• Annabel Harriett Lewis
• Erin Le’Andrea Logan
• Keely Munoz
• Elizabeth Leslie Pailan

Masters of Microbial Biotechnology (MMB)

The MMB program welcomed 26 new students this fall. We are working on five projects with four companies: Alura, Novonesis (x2), Seqirus, and W.L. Gore & Associates.

Plant Biology Undergraduate Program

The Botany Club, which is open to all NC State students, meets every other Monday, 6:00-7:00pm in 2212 Gardner Hall. For this fall, the remaining meeting dates are: October 28th, 30th, November 11th, and November 25th.

This year’s club is led by a terrific officer team that is organizing activities and speakers:

• President: Zoe Curtis
• Vice President: Jake Thompson
• Secretary/Treasurer: Shriya Reddy
• Agri-Life Council Representatives: Giuliana Mendoza and Caitlyn Elliott

Be on the lookout for more information about the club’s activities!

Lab Announcements and Publications

Choudoir Lab

• The Choudoir Lab welcomes Bella Borrero (MB PhD student) and Matthew Clayton (Undergraduate Research Assistant, Microbiology)

Grunden Lab

• The Grunden Lab welcomes two new research scholars: Scott Latimer and Suzanne Sikes.

Krings Lab

• Welcome to Ellis Bosarge! Ellis will be pursuing an MS, focusing on the flora of the Green River Gorge in Polk County.
• Congratulations to former students Merry Conlin (MS; now with NC Natural Heritage Program) and Alexandria Szakacs (PhD; now Asst. Prof. at Southeastern Oklahoma State University) for their recent publications:
  • Conlin, M.R., A. Krings, W. Petry, J. Forrester, and J. Crawford. 2024. Range-wide quantitative habitat characterization of critically imperiled Ludwigia ravenii (Onagraceae). Castanea 89 (1): 63–95.
  • Szakacs, A.D., T.R. Wentworth, and A. Krings. 2024. In search of the “Piedmont prairies”: Multivariate analyses of heliophilic plant communities in the heart of the Piedmont of eastern North America. Castanea 89 (1): 12–34.:

Long Lab

• Welcoming Abby Kimrey, a microbiology major.
• Recently received an NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) – GRAD Aid for Ag!

Lyu Lab

• The Lyu lab welcomes one undergrad and three rotation grad students to our lab this fall. They are Anna Miller (microbiology undergraduate student), Darren Bertin (IBMP), Dexter Boldog (MB), and Edeline Anthoniraj (MB/GGS).
• We also thank lab members who are serving MBGSA officers for the 2024-25 term:
  • Vice-president: Kairi Takana (graduatestudent).
  • Treasurer/Secretary: Carla Sanchez (graduate student).
• Awards by lab members this year:
  • LW Parks Research Awards in Microbiology: Emily Sontag (undergraduate student).
  • Top Poster Prize, PMB Grad Student Poster Symposium: Carla Sanchez (graduate student).
  • Project Supply Grant, Office of Undergrad Research: Emily Sontag (undergraduate student).
  • Outstanding Associate Editor, Frontiers in Microbiology: Zhe Lyu (faculty).
• New publications by lab members this year:
  • Lyu et al., Editorial: Cross-boundary significance of methanogens – the methane moment and beyond. doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1434586
  • Tanaka et al., Inhibiting methanogenesis by targeting thermodynamics and enzymatic reactions in mixed cultures of rumen microbes in vitro. doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1322207

Miranda Lab

• Welcome to Dr. Arsalan Taassob, new postdoctoral researcher at the Miranda Lab. He joins us after working with NASA’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
• New preprint
• New publication in collaboration with the Francis Crick Institute, the Imperial college London, and Berkeley
• 2 new grants (one PI one Co-PI): PI :
  • 1. National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology’s External Project Grant (NITMB). Orlando Argüello-Miranda (PI). Equation learning modeling of mitochondrial inheritance during sex cell production. Co-PI:
  • 2. NSF 24-513. Kevin Flores (PI), Orlando Argüello-Miranda (Co-PI). Multi-task biologically informed neural networks for learning dynamical systems from single-cell protein expression data.

Raymann Lab

• Clara Tyson joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant in August.
• Jason Bland joined the lab as a Research Associate in May.
• Summer Fellows:
  • We hosted three BeeMORE REEU Program undergraduate students this summer: Anjali Zumkhawala-Cook (Kenyon College), Emily Dillon (University of Dayton), & Yeslee Neris (Mount Holyoke College). They all presented their summer research projects at the NCSU Summer Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium.

• Publications:
  • Hopkins HA, Lopezguerra C, Lau M-J, Raymann K. 2024. Making a pathogen? Evaluating the impact of protist predation on the evolution of virulence in Serratia marcescens. Genome Biol Evo. 16:evae149 (https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/16/8/evae149/7705708)
  • Kwong W & Raymann K. 2024 Is it me or is it you? Physiological effects of the honey bee microbiota may instead be due to host maturation. mBio (https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02107-24)
• Highlights: A highlight was written about our recent publication in GBE.
• Patrick Gallagher and Nayma Romo Bechara (MB Graduate students) were selected to give poster presentations at the American Society for Microbiology Microbe Conference in Atlanta Georgia in June.
• The Raymann lab had a very productive and successful first honey bee research season at NCSU with only a few stings to report! (photos below)

Sozzani Lab

• Charlie Hodgens is a new postdoctoral scholar in the Sozzani Lab.
• Gabriel Ehlenberger who worked with us over the summer, joined the lab as an undergraduate researcher.
• New publication in “Nature”: Morffy N, Van den Broeck L, Miller C, Emencker RJ, Bryant JA, Mahatma S, Wright RC, Holehouse AS, Staller MV, Sozzani R, Strader LC. Plant Activation Domain Identification. Nature, 2024. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07707-3

Departmental Announcements

• Want some PMB swag? PMB logo Tee, Polo style shirts, and mugs available for purchase. The cost is $17 for the Polos, $7.55 for the T-shirts, and $5 for the mugs. Please email Catherine Freeman (cmfreem2@ncsu.edu) to check for sizes available and to order.
  

We are so excited to see what this year holds for our PMB Department! Thank you to all those who contributed to our fall newsletter.