Follow our new series on research happening in the Department of Biology. Each story will broadly highlight a current study or papers that faculty members and graduate students have published as a result of their research findings. For deeper content, we’ll link to the journal or publication in which the research is featured.
Dr. Asim Bej
"Microbial Communities and Their Predicted Metabolic Functions in Growth Laminae of a Unique Large Conical Mat from Lake Untersee, East Antarctica"
Koo, H., Mojib, N., Hakim, J.A., Hawes, I., Tanabe, Y., Andersen, D.T. and Bej, A.K.. Frontiers in Microbiology 8, 2017.
This study provides insight into the complex microbial ecosystems in decal laminae of ~10,000 years old large conical microbial mats, only found in the permanently ice-covered Lake Untersee of East Antarctica using NextGen sequencing and bioinformatics tools. These mats represent excellent models to enhance our understanding of the coordinated function of the microbial community to the formation of microbial mats, which existed millions of years ago on this planet. Biology graduate student Hyunmin Koo is the leading author and the work was conducted in Dr. Bej’s lab at UAB Department of Biology in collaboration with Dr. Dale T. Andersen of SETI Institute, California; Ian Hawes of University of Waikato, New Zealand; Yukiko Tanabe of National Institute of Polar Research, Tachikawa, Japan; and Casey D. Morrow of UAB Microbiome and Gnotobiotic Animal Core.
"Comparison of two bioinformatics tools used to characterize the microbial diversity and predictive functional attributes of microbial mats from Lake Obersee, Antarctica"
Koo, H., Hakim, J.A., Morrow, C.D., Eipers, P.G., Davila, A., Andersen, D.T. and Bej, A.K. Journal of Microbiological Methods 140, 2017.
This study reveals the microbial community composition and their predicted metabolic functional attributes in the previously undescribed permanently ice-covered Lake Obersee in East Antarctica using NextGen sequencing and bioinformatics tools. We have introduced a user-defined R script in this manuscript that helps elucidate a comprehensive understanding of microbial ecology structure and their predicted functional profiles by combining two strategies of taxonomic identification and metabolic pathway inference. Biology graduate student Hyunmin Koo is the leading author and the work was conducted in Dr. Bej’s lab at UAB Department of Biology in collaboration with Dr. Dale T. Andersen of SETI Institute, California; Alfonso Davila of NASA Ames Research, California; and Casey D. Morrow of UAB Microbiome and Gnotobiotic Animal Core.
Learn More
Learn more about Dr. Bej, our graduate students, and our research on the Department of Biology website.
