[bioundgrd] FW: CORRECTION: Microbiome Club Faculty Seminar: Prof. Michelle O'Malley, 11/6 at 12:30 PM in 56-614

[Joshua Stone]

From: Chelsea Catania <cataniac at mit.edu>
Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:51 AM
To: microbiome-club <microbiome-club at mit.edu>
Subject: CORRECTION: Microbiome Club Faculty Seminar: Prof. Michelle O'Malley, 11/6 at 12:30 PM in 56-614

Correction: TUESDAY, sorry!
MIT Microbiome Club
Faculty Seminar Series
[cid:DE188664-4E8D-43E8-AA08-7505B7991C01 at broadinstitute.org]
Prof. Michelle O'Malley
Engineering Synthetic Microbial Consortia Inspired by the Herbivore Rumen
TUESDAY, November 6th at 12:30 PM in 56-614 (RSVP<https://www.facebook.com/events/1311485768987773/>)
Come early for pizza!

Anaerobic microbes evolved to work together in complex communities that decompose and recycle carbon biomass throughout the Earth – from our guts to landfills and compost piles. Despite their importance, little information exists to parse the role of each microbial member within their dynamic community. To address these knowledge gaps, we pioneered new techniques to isolate anaerobes from biomass-rich environments (e.g. guts and fecal materials of herbivores) and build synthetic consortia to uncover their interdependencies. Initially, we tracked the development of enrichment cultures from goat fecal pellets grown on four types of substrates: alfalfa stem, bagasse, reed canary grass, and xylan over several generations. We tested the hypothesis that the composition of these enriched consortia would stabilize to match the metabolic requirements needed to degrade each substrate. Metagenomic sequencing of the 16S rRNA (prokaryotes), 18S rRNA (eukaryotes), and ITS (fungi) population within the consortia revealed strong specialization of the microbes during selection, suggesting that the membership of each culture tuned to match the substrate. Using these natural systems as inspiration, synthetic consortia of fungi, bacteria, and methanogens were combined in culture and tested for stability and substrate hydrolysis. In nearly all cases, synthetic consortia demonstrated faster and more complete degradation of cellulosic substrates, as well as a wider range of utilized substrates compared to monocultures. We will further discuss the roles that interwoven metabolism and secondary metabolites play on microbial consortia dynamics, both in natural and synthetic systems. Overall, the stable microbial consortia we identified here directed the formation of synthetic, interdependent communities via a bottom up approach to compartmentalize biomass-degradation and bioproduct formation.

[cid:024C3A15-59C7-446A-BCA0-AF58E3BB3EAC at mit.edu]
Bio: Michelle A. O’Malley earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2009, where she worked with Prof. Anne Robinson to engineer overproduction of membrane proteins in yeast. O’Malley was a USDA-NIFA postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology at MIT, where she developed new strategies for cellulosic biofuel production. She joined the Chemical Engineering faculty at UC-Santa Barbara in 2012, and her research group engineers protein synthesis within anaerobes and consortia for sustainable chemical production, bioremediation, and natural product discovery. O’Malley’s research has been featured on NPR’s Science Friday, the BBC Newshour, the LA Times, and several other media outlets. She was named one of the 35 Top Innovators Under 35 in the world by MIT Technology Review in 2015, and is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a DOE Early Career Award, an NSF CAREER award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, an ACS PMSE Young Investigator Award, an ACS WCC “Rising Star” Award, and a Hellman Faculty Fellowship.


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The MIT Microbiome Club, part of the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, brings together inquisitive MIT undergrads, grad researchers, postdocs, faculty, and clinicians in the emerging field of microbiome studies and microbiome-based medicine. Learn more on our Facebook page. <https://www.facebook.com/MITmicrobiomeclub/> Or follow us on Twitter<https://twitter.com/MITubiomeclub>.

Chelsea Catania, Ph.D.
MIT Microbiome Club President
Postdoctoral Associate
Laboratory for Energy and Microsystems Innovation
Department of Mechanical Engineering
@MITubiomeclub<https://twitter.com/MITubiomeclub>

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