DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Predation Behavior of Bacteriovorax and Bacteriophages Against Vibrio spp. - Linking Predatory Traits with Systematics of the Bacterial Predator

乳酸菌是一种独特的掠食性细菌，作为抗菌剂具有潜在的作用和益处，可以减轻植物和动物的某些细菌性疾病，控制细菌数量和循环利用环境中的营养物质。这些细菌也可能是尚未开发的新型治疗化合物的重要来源。为了充分发挥菌群的潜力，有必要更好地了解它们的基因组结构，并为它们的分类和命名系统带来秩序。本研究的目的是利用全基因组序列来鉴定表现最好的基因，以推进细菌的分类和系统。构建一个更准确的菌群进化树将为今后的研究提供一个定义新菌株的框架。这些信息和由此产生的分类方案将通过出版物、序列数据库和网站向科学界传播。佛罗里达农工大学是一所历史悠久的黑人学院和大学，很少有申请者提交DDIG提案。学生共同负责人将通过演讲分享她在计划和撰写提案方面的经验，以激励他人，从而潜在地增加少数民族学生的提案数量。

Bacteriovorax are unique predatory bacteria with potential roles and benefits as antibacterial agents to mitigate certain bacterial diseases in plants and animals, controlling bacterial populations and recycling nutrients in the environment. These bacteria may also be an important unexploited source of new novel therapeutic compounds. To realize the full potential of Bacteriovorax, it is necessary to better understand their genome structure and to bring order to the system of classifying and naming them. The purpose of this study is to use whole-genomic sequences to identify the best-performing genes in order to advance the classification and systematics of Bacteriovorax bacteria. The construction of a more accurate phylogenetic tree of Bacteriovorax will provide a framework to define novel isolates in future studies.This information and resulting classification scheme will be disseminated to the scientific community through publications, sequence databases and a website. Florida A&M is a historically black college and university with few applicants submitting DDIG proposals. The student Co-PI will share her experiences in planning and writing the proposal through presentations to inspire others and thus potentially increasing future numbers of proposals from minority students.