Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Microbial Biology for FY 2002

这一行动为NSF 2002财年微生物生物学博士后奖学金提供了资金。该奖学金支持关于原生动物、微藻、真菌、古生物、细菌和病毒物种的基本生物学的培训和研究，这些物种通常不被认为是模式生物。此外，它还为最近获得博士学位的人提供了在微生物生物学方面获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科和研究生培训期间拓宽其科学视野，使其超越研究经验。这些奖学金还旨在帮助新科学家引导他们的研究工作跨越传统的学科界限，并利用独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括外国地点。这项研究和培训计划的标题是“结肠粘连素型抗生素基因的进化是为了提高宿主细菌的竞争力，还是它们是自私成瘾的基因？”Colicin类细菌素被认为已经演变为化感物质，为携带它们的细菌菌株提供了竞争优势。这项研究调查了另一种假设，即结肠粘连素质粒是自私的元件，并利用一种形式的分离后杀死，以确保它们由宿主细菌维持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbial Biology for FY2002. The fellowship supports training and research on the basic biology of protozoan, microalgal, fungal, archaeal, bacterial and viral species that are not generally considered to be model organisms. Further, it provides opportunities for recent doctoral recipients to obtain additional training in microbial biology, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden his/her scientific horizons beyond the research experiences during the undergraduate and graduate training. These fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including foreign locations. The research and training plan is entitled "Have colicin type antibiotic genes evolved to increase their host bacteria's competitiveness, or are they selfish addictive genes?" Colicin type bacteriocins are believed to have evolved as allelopathic agents that confer a competitive advantage to bacterial strains that harbor them. This research investigates an alternative hypothesis that colicin plasmids are selfish elements and utilize a form of post segregational killing to insure their maintenance by host bacteria.