Floyd Award for Outstanding Publication in Microbiology

2022 Floyd Award for Outstanding Publication in Microbiology Recipients

Each year the microbiology faculty members award a prize for the best microbiology publication by a graduate student. This year three papers were chosen to each receive a prize.

First prize: Zhongqing Ren

Zhongqing Ren is a graduate student in Assistant Professor Xindan Wang’s lab. Zhongqing is interested in chromosome biology because chromosomes provide the blueprint for all life. Inside the lab, Zhongqing studies chromosome folding and dynamics using Bacillus subtilis and Agrobacterium tumefaciens as model organisms.

Publication: “Conformation and dynamic interactions of the multipartite genome in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.”

Second prize: Delaney Miller

Delaney Miller is a Ph.D. candidate in Professor Irene Newton's lab, where she studies microbiome x fungal pathogen interactions in honey bees. She has discovered a defensive symbiosis in honey bees in which a diet-associated symbiont, Bombella apis, protects bee brood from fungal infection. Her goals are to better understand 1) what symbiont traits underlie its protective phenotype and 2) how strain identity and biogeography impacts protection. ​Delaney hopes to leverage the answers to these questions and develop strategies and/or applications to monitor and promote honey bee health.

Publication: “A bacterial symbiont protects honey bees from fungal disease.”