Opportunity Description

The focus of our lab is quantitative systems biology where our primary system is the gut and brain the model organism c elegans (a 1mm long worm). We have designed an experiment to image and track over time the population of a few species of bacteria in the gut of the worms (the microbiome) . This system is very noisy and there is a combinatorial explosion of species to investigate, requiring the experiment to be run at high throughput. We are working to expand the through put of the microfluidics experiment by automation of pumps, valves, imaging and analysis. We are also engineering a set of bacteria to express 1 of several possible fluorescent proteins allowing us to see them in the gut of the worms.

We are looking for an undergraduate student to assist with this project over the summer 2022 and if available into the fall semester. Possible projects include genetic engineering of bacteria, microfluidics platform fabrication, experiment process development. Prior lab experience is not necessary, but some background in chmE, BioE, MechE, Biology, chemistry or related field is preferred. No financial compensation is available.

If interested please write a short letter of interest to kolev.s@northeastern.edu and e.levine@northeastern.edu to learn more.

Duration

Summer/Fall

Compensation

Unpaid

Lab

Levine Lab