March/April 2025 - Several Undergraduate Students participated in local opportunities to share their research projects. Both Rebecca Tietze and Leighton Petty presented at the Baylor Bears Symposium. Leighton also presented his work during URSA scholars week, alongside fellow undergradute researcher Kaveen Patel. Rebecca presented her work on sequencing 40 Microcystis isolate genomes, Leighton presented his work on identification of cyanobacteria recovered from Lake Waco sediment cores, and Kaveen presented his work on the effect of individual bacteria on the microbiome of Microcystis aeruginosa. Great job!

Nov 2024 - Undergraduate researcher, Rebecca Tietze, presented her summer work on the specificity of microcystin (mcy) primers on both microcystin-producing and microcystin-non-producing Microcystis strains. She is working with over 40 Microcystis isolates, and will continue to develop her molecular biology skills through whole genome sequencing (WGS).