The Microbes Less Traveled: Genomic Technologies for Non-model Microbes

Our understanding of microbes has transformed in recent decades. The explosion of microbiome research has led to the discovery of microbes that play key roles in human, animal, and ecological health, agriculture, industry, and infrastructure. Microbes with properties of interest are being discovered more rapidly than they can be studied with current methods. Our group is working to increase the pace of study by developing new bioinformatic methods that leverage high-throughput sequencing for microbial genomics and microbiome research, with a particular focus on non-model microbes. I will focus on a medium-throughput method for phenotype-genotype mapping, and our epigenetic in a non-model fungal pathogen and microbial communities.