Department of Microbiology

January 2021:  Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Vega Thurber, Microbiology, on being selected as a recipient of the 2020-21 James and Mildred Oldfield/E.R. Jackman Team Award along with other members of the The COVID Wastewater Team.  This award recognizes superior and distinguished interdisciplinary team achievements through teaching, research, international, or extended education activities of faculty and staff.  The CAS Faculty and Staff awards event will be held virtually on Wednesday, February 24 at 12 pm. 

In Memoriam:  Dr. Richard Morita, A Stellar Career.  On November 22, 2020 the family of Richard Yukio Morita reached out to tell us that Dick had died at 97 in Corvallis.  All of us reacted to the news with great sadness.  He was an outstanding scientist who accomplished many firsts in microbiology: the  discovery of barophilic bacteria; the discovery of new thermal groups of bacteria, psychrophiles, and the establishment of the concept of starvation-survival in bacteria. 

Gut bacteria associated with animal-based diet may mitigate risk of cardiovascular disease:  “The connection between TMAO and cardiovascular disease has tended to focus the conversation on how animal-based diets cause negative health consequences,” said Dr. Veronika Kivenson, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Science with Microbiology.  CHANNEL 8 NEWS VIDEO

Research by OSU scientists, including Dr. Jerri Bartholomew, on the C.  shasta parasite’s role in the Klamath Basin began in the early 1980s in the Williamson and Lower Sprague Rivers, where high populations of worms were detected on the riverbed and high densities of parasite spores in the water. But the disease only seemed to impact non-native rainbow trout, which had been transplanted from another system and, unlike the native trout, hadn’t developed a resistance to C. shasta.

Recent Microbiology Master’s degree recipient, Elizanette ‘Nette’ Lopez, has been awarded a fellowship from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) to learn at the CDC biorepository in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Nette successfully defended her thesis, “Effects of elevated temperature on Mycobacterium chelonae growth and mycobacteriosis in zebrafish (Danio rerio)” in early July, 2020.     Nette came to Oregon State University from Texas. Her interest in science began at a young age with a fascination in the practice of[...]

May 21, 2020: Saving Atlantis, a feature documentary produced by OSU filmmakers tracks coral microbiologist Rebecca Vega Thurber and other OSU researchers, uncovering the causes and seeking solutions for the global decline of coral reef ecosystems, is now streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime.  Saving Atlantis. Coral reefs cover only 0.1 percent of the Earth’s surface, but they’re home to 25 percent of all marine species, and they’re being lost at an alarming rate. Pollution, overfishing and[...]

April 2, 2020:  A study that included the first-ever winter sampling of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic revealed cells smaller than what scientists expected, meaning commonly used carbon sequestration models may be over-optimistic.   The OSU research into the microscopic algae, part of NASA’s North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study, was published today in the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal.  The findings are significant because the spring phytoplankton bloom in the North Atlantic “is probably the largest biological[...]

February 2020:  A group of researchers, including Dr. Jerri Bartholomew and Dr. Stephen Atkinson from OSU, have discovered that a common salmon parasite in the PNW has lost its mitochondrial genome and cannot use oxygen directly.  READ FURTHER