I am a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Rachel Whitaker’s Lab at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I study the mechanisms and spread of antibiotic resistance. Our knowledge of how these resistance genes move between microbes and between different environments remains limited. Antibiotic resistance genes often travel by horizontal gene transfer mediated by mobile genetic elements such as transposons, viruses, and plasmids. Antibiotic resistance genes are ubiquitous in nature but are rarely studied prior to their emergence in difficult to treat infections. Though they are present, these genes are rare in the environment, comprising less than one percent of metagenomic samples. My project uses CRISPR technology to enrich complex samples to detect and analyze the elements that mobilize antibiotic resistance genes.
