Bert Ely

In my lab we are studying the genomes of Caulobacter strains isolated from natural sources and the bacteriophages that attack them to understand the roles of genome rearrangements, mutations, and horizontal gene transfer in genome evolution. This project involves the isolation of bacteria and bacteriophages, characterization of the isolates, genome sequencing, and bioinformatics. In addition, a second project involves creating gene knockouts in strains that either stimulate or inhibit plant growth to determine the molecular mechanisms responsible for these bacterial/plant interactions.