Laura Markey Email & Phone Number

Westborough, Ma, Us

Lynn, Ma, Us

• Developed and used a mouse model to characterize the role of the skin and gut microbiome in regulating host basal immune tone and skin healing in response to acute mechanical damage• Optimized protocols to process flank skin and generate single cell suspensions for flow cytometry analysis and primary cell isolation and culture• Generated a “best practices” protocol for isolation of microbial DNA from low biomass (skin swab) samples and computational contaminant identification for accurate microbiome analysis using shotgun metagenomic and 16s amplicon sequencing

• Discovered novel gut microbiome-brain interactions between the fungus Candida albicans and the host by performing neuroscience behavioral and acute stress protocols in a BSL2 animal facility• Defined immune priming within the gastrointestinal tract using multiplex ELISAs and qPCR in response to C. albicans colonization which protected the host from Clostridioides difficile pathogen challenge • Characterized the impact of C. albicans colonization on the gut microbiome and its ability to recover from antibiotic perturbation using metagenomic sequencing • Generated fluorescent reporter strains of C. albicans using classic molecular cloning

Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

The Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory Training Fellowship is funded by APHL and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC). I conducted Salmonella enterica surveillance project in the food microbiology lab investigating the prevalence and identity of S. enterica in eggs from different commercial sources in MA Health.

Generated transposon mutant library in Vibrio fischeri and discovered a novel regulator of symbiosis phenotypes such as luminescence, biofilm formation and the ability to colonize their native host, the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes)

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Molecular Microbiology

B.A In Biological Sciences, Genetics And Molecular Biology

Education record