Fabini, who joined the Boucher lab in September 2012, has successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled "Taxonomy of bacteria in the genomic era." After publishing 11 authored and co-authored papers (plus 4 more in the pipeline), he is off to be a Postdoc in the labs of Dr. Dominic Sauvageau (Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering) and Dr. Lisa Stein (Department of Biological Sciences) at the University of Alberta. Congrats, Fabini!
Kevin is Awarded an Alberta Innovates Scholarship!
Kevin wins the Alberta Innovates Graduate Student Scholarship for his Masters degree! Congrats Kevin!
Tracking the Pandemic Generating Lineage of Vibrio cholerae
In collaboration with Dr. Munirul Alam (International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh), Yan and Tareq's new review outlining the evolution and dissemination of the pandemic lineage of Vibrio cholerae has been published. "Emergence, ecology and dispersal of the pandemic generating Vibrio cholerae lineage" is now available in the open access journal of International Microbiology.
The initial development of pandemic Vibrio cholerae highlights important gene acquisition events required for the Pandemic Generating (PG) lineage to form before being able to infect human hosts. These preliminary gene acquisition stages drive the evolution of pandemic cholera, up to the seventh and current pandemic El Tor strains. Phylogenetic analysis of PG strains indicate a replacement of El Tor predecessors that is now associated with current cholera outbreaks. Pandemic V. cholerae exists in two life stages, as a pathogen in human hosts and in environmental reservoirs, with ecological factors influencing regions that have annual patterns of infection outbreaks, such as water chemistry and host associations in environmental reservoirs. This review provides insight into the evolutionary path of PG V. cholerae, and its dispersal in the environment outside of human hosts.
Phylogenetic analysis of pandemic V. cholerae evolution (from Islam et al., 2017)
Welcome Kevin and Nora!
Kevin Liang and Nora Hussain have been officially welcomed into the Boucher lab as Masters students! Kevin has a B.Sc. in Bioinformatics from the University of Alberta, and Nora graduated from the University of Alberta with a B.Sc. with a specialization in Microbiology. Both Kevin and Nora started off doing undergraduate research projects in the Boucher lab, and continued on to pursue graduate studies after completing their B.Sc. degrees. This will be the first group of Masters students in the Boucher lab.
Welcome back, Kevin and Nora!
Kevin and Nora are the newest graduate recruits in the Boucher lab.
It's DOCTOR Paul now!
After almost five years to the day, Paul successfully defended his thesis "Population dynamics of Vibrio cholerae and its close relative Vibrio metoecus in an aquatic ecosystem" and is now just a few thesis edits away from officially becoming a doctor! Paul was Yan's first grad student and is moving on to do a postdoc in the lab of Dr. Howard Ochman at the University of Texas at Austin. For the time being, he will still remain in Edmonton over the summer to wrap up various projects from his Ph.D.
Congrats Paul!
Evolution of the Type VI Secretion System in Vibrio cholerae
Paul and Yan's new paper, "Sequential displacement of type VI secretion system effector genes leads to evolution of diverse immunity gene arrays in Vibrio cholerae," is out!
In collaboration with Dr. Stefan Pukatzki (University of Colorado Denver), Dr. Daniele Provenzano (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and Dr. Daniel Unterweger (University of Oxford), Paul and Yan conducted an extensive study on the role of horizontal gene transfer in shaping the diversity of type VI secretion system (T6SS) loci in V. cholerae and closely related species. They discovered the existence of complex arrays of effector and immunity genes in these loci. These arrays differ even between closely related sympatric strains and appear to be formed by successive horizontal gene transfer events. The resulting accumulation of large numbers of immunity genes potentially enhance the recipient's fitness in T6SS-mediated bactericidal interactions. Additionally, they show how the accumulation of T6SS elements through horizontal gene transfer could have contributed to the evolution of some V. cholerae strains from harmless environmental bacteria to pandemic pathogens.
Whole-genome phylogeny and T6SS effector-immunity module composition of V. cholerae and closely related species (from Kirchberger et al., 2017)