Our summer Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) students, Sara and Taylor, presented their summer projects in poster format during the end of summer symposium. Overcoming challenging, fast-paced courses while doing part-time lab work was definitely a test this summer. We are proud of what they accomplished!
I was honored to be chosen for the Schroth Faces of the Future symposium at the American Phytopathological Society. I presented a 40 minute talk in a session with other early career, amazing plant-microbe biologists. It was so fun to brag about our team and the work we’ve accomplished in just a year and a half! Grateful to the organizers and to APS and CIPHER for the travel funding to attend. -Morgan
We are so proud of Lauren Carneal, the lab technician, who is leaving to pursue her Ph.D. at Penn State in plant pathology. But also really sad to see her go! Lauren was the epitome of a helpful lab technician who worked on at least a little of every project in the lab, kept the chore chart going, and fostered a wonderfully collaborative environment. But don’t worry, we’re keeping a bit of her art/data here to be part of the lab. Can’t wait to follow her future success!
We’re starting new traditions left and right this summer. We popped the cork for our first paper from the lab being published, which includes new Mycetohabitans genomes and a lot of interesting sequence analysis of btl genes within them. Many more to go to fill our 4 L flask!!
This week we had our first annual Carter Lab Summit, an all day lab meeting with presentations by each lab member, discussions about electronic lab notebooks and the use of AI/LLMs, a journal article discussion, and ending with a tasty potluck. Amazing to see what everyone has accomplished in the short year that we’ve been growing microbes.
We’re starting to settle into a summer routine in the bustling CIPHER center. No more ghost town up here, it’s hopping! We’ve welcomed in two new undergraduates (Sara and Taylor) through the Office of Undergraduate Research and a rotation student (Caroline) from Bioinformatics, and a high school intern. Time to get some science done 🧪
We finished out Spring 2024 celebrating the B.Sc. graduation of lab members Tim Love and Aylha Pferschy! Aylha will be continuing in the lab as an early entry masters student.
We had a joint lab BBQ with Lab LaBella from Bioinformatics and then an impromptu birthday lunch the week after graduation. The calm before a busy summer!!
This semester, the Carter lab hosted four students from the Charlotte Early Engineering College as they worked on a mock start-up. They worked in the lab culturing various common fungi on plastic and media to investigate plastic degradation. Congrats to Nathan, Sidney, Max, and Kylie on a winning presentation at their Senior Expo showing off their Fungi Fusion prototype!
The Carter Lab participated in the annual Research Meet & Greet hosted by the graduate students of the Department of Biological Sciences. Undergrads from around campus were invited to connect with labs and learn more about research on campus. We loved connecting with new potential lab members and other interested students!
And kudos to the grad students for their hard work in hosting this event!
It is bittersweet to see undergraduate Tim wrap up his time in the lab. Having worked with us summer and fall of 2023 on motility and competition projects, he is moving on to a part-time job in a physical therapy clinic. As glad as we are for this opportunity that will help him achieve his goal of becoming a physical therapist, we’ll miss his great questions and thoughtful perspective!
We’re already finding that the fun of an academic lab is that as one person rotates out, another comes in. So we are excited to welcome new undergraduate researcher Paola Diaz-Matamoros who will be working with Dallas on our novel interactions with Fusarium spp. project.
Almost all lab members got together to enjoy lunch at the close of the fall semester and celebrate the first year of the Carter Lab. We toasted to Alison’s B.Sc. graduation and Ruth’s M.Sc. graduation – both are continuing in the lab next semester as M.Sc. and Ph.D. students, respectively. Though Tim couldn’t make it, he was still there in spirit (and photoshop).
