Platform for the analysis of microbial growth, competition, and interaction

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We propose to purchase equipment for semi-automated, high-throughput enumeration of microbes, and for the analysis of microbial metabolites. A spiral plater and automated plate counter will allow us to count microbes with high accuracy and efficiency, and a lyophilizer (freeze-drier) is required as a first step in the preparation of samples for subsequent chemical analyses. This equipment will primarily support the research programs of four principal investigators. Dr. Wong’s lab uses laboratory selection experiments in bacteria to study the evolutionary process in real-time; high-throughput enumeration will facilitate fitness assays and studies of pathogen evolution in a Drosophila host. Subsequent chemical analyses, using the lyophilizer for sample preparation, will provide insight into the chemical basis of microbe-microbe and host-pathogen interactions. Dr. Ormeci’s group will use the enumeration equipment for measuring bacterial loads in wastewater. Dr. Smith’s and Dr. Rowland’s groups will use the lyophilizer to support their work in the discovery of novel antimicrobials, and in the study of plant-microbe interactions, respectively. The requested equipment will be used extensively by trainees. We anticipate that students and post-doctoral fellows from all four labs (approximately 20 per year) will use this equipment on a weekly basis. Similar technology is employed extensively in industry, government, and academia, such that the training will be readily transferable. The enumeration equipment is unavailable at Carleton, and an existing lyophilizer is in another Department and over-subscribed; as such, delays in obtaining this equipment will significantly impede the proposed work.