{"594511":{"#nid":"594511","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Microbial Interactions through Chemical Mediators","body":[{"value":"\u003Ch3\u003EA School of Biological Sciences Seminar by Babak Momeni, Assistant Professor of Biology, Boston College\u003C\/h3\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nMicrobial communities, which are assemblies of interacting microbes, affect our health and environment. They can be harmful by causing infections or beneficial by degrading toxins. Controlling harmful or beneficial communities requires predictive models that adequately capture microbial interactions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFollowing the historical tradition of community ecology, researchers often model microbial communities as a superposition of pairwise fitness effects between species (for example, by\u0026nbsp;using Lotka-Volterra equations). However, it is unclear under what conditions such models are suitable for representing microbial communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWe show that common microbial interactions mediated by chemical compounds (called mediators) often cannot be adequately captured by using a pairwise fitness model. We build a simple model of interactions by explicitly incorporating chemical mediators. We explore how interaction mechanisms influence the mathematical representation in such a model. We use this model to investigate how interactions among species can lead to coexistence in a microbial community.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EOur results suggest that we need to be cautious when extrapolating and generalizing conclusions obtained from pairwise fitness models to communities with diverse interaction mechanisms. We advocate a transition to models that incorporate interaction mechanisms at the appropriate level of abstraction.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EABOUT THE SPEAKER\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nBabak Momeni joined the department of biology at Boston College in 2015 as an assistant professor. He received his doctoral training in \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/research\/photonics\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EPhotonics Research Group\u003C\/a\u003E (Electrical Engineering) at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/a\u003E, where he designed and implemented compact on-chip photonic demultiplexers. He continued his work at Georgia Tech as a postdoctoral fellow, making spectrometers for biosensing applications. Intrigued by biological systems, he joined the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/honeycomb.fhcrc.org\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EShou lab\u003C\/a\u003E at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.fredhutch.org\/en.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EFred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center\u003C\/a\u003E, and studied stability and spatial organization of microbial communities in synthetic communities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.momenilab.org\/\u0022\u003EMore on Babak Momeni\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHost: Sam Brown\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMicrobial communities, which\u0026nbsp;are assemblies of interacting microbes, impact our health and environment. They can be harmful by causing infections or beneficial by degrading toxins. Controlling harmful or beneficial communities requires predictive models that adequately capture microbial interactions.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Biological Sciences Seminar by Babak Momeni, Boston College"}],"uid":"27964","created_gmt":"2017-08-16 15:53:28","changed_gmt":"2017-09-29 21:40:39","author":"Jasmine Martin","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2017-10-05T11:55:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2017-10-05T12:55:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2017-10-05T12:55:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2017-10-05 15:55:00","gmt_time_end":"2017-10-05 16:55:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2017-10-05 16:55:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"596574":{"id":"596574","type":"image","title":"Babak Momeni","body":null,"created":"1506540163","gmt_created":"2017-09-27 19:22:43","changed":"1506540163","gmt_changed":"2017-09-27 19:22:43","alt":"","file":{"fid":"227375","name":"babak momeni.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/babak%20momeni.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/babak%20momeni.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":17492,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/babak%20momeni.jpeg?itok=rmQ8zCe7"}}},"media_ids":["596574"],"groups":[{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"},{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"175210","name":"Babak Momeni"},{"id":"167225","name":"Sam Brown"},{"id":"166892","name":"School of Biological Sciences Seminar"},{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"78771","name":"Public"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"},{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:sam.brown@biosci.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESam Brown\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}