Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that kills over a million people around the world each year, in part because the bacteria rapidly evolve resistance to antibiotics. Bacteria face a variety of microenvironments during human infection and respond to different environments by regulating their gene expression. These gene expression changes often involve regulation of mRNA degradation, and often affect antibiotic sensitivity. To understand the links between mRNA degradation and antibiotic sensitivity, we will use a related but non-pathogenic bacterial species to test the impact of environmental stressors by determining how deletion of RNA degradation proteins affects antibiotic activity.

Faculty Advisor: Scarlet Shell | WPI (Biology & Biotechnology)

Teacher Component: The (high school) teacher will carry out experiments in the lab to address the broad question described above. In the process, they will learn state-of-the-art techniques in microbiology and molecular biology. The teacher and PI (faculty) will also work together to develop a set of related experiments that the teacher can carry out with their students. These will be designed to be feasible with the resources available in a high school setting and to align with the curricular objectives of the target class.