Research Projects

Bacteria's ability to pick up external DNA powers our DNA biosensing work, but in nature, this also helps bacteria gain new genes to aid their survival. Unfortunately for us, this gene swapping includes antibiotic resistance genes, which make microbial infections harder to treat. We are interested in understanding the quantitative dynamics of this process. We previously revealed that some bacteria can directly kill their neighbors and "steal" their genes, rather than waiting to encounter DNA floating around in the environment, and developed a quantitative model for the process. We are improving this model to better understand the rate-limiting steps in horizontal gene transfer, which should also help us improve our living DNA biosensors.