Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Microbial Biology for FY 2002

本行动资助2002年度美国国家科学基金会微生物生物学博士后奖学金。该奖学金支持一般不被认为是模式生物的原生动物、微藻、真菌、古细菌、细菌和病毒物种的基本生物学培训和研究。此外，它为新近的博士学位获得者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。这些研究金的进一步目的是帮助新科学家指导他们的研究工作跨越传统的学科界线，并利用独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括国外的地点。这项研究和培训计划的标题是“大肠杆菌素类抗生素基因是为了提高宿主细菌的竞争力而进化的，还是自私的成瘾基因？”大肠杆菌素型细菌素被认为是作为化感剂进化而来的，使携带它们的细菌菌株具有竞争优势。本研究探讨了另一种假设，即大肠杆菌素质粒是自私的元素，并利用一种分离后杀伤的形式来确保其被宿主细菌维持。

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.