Bertucci and Tiwold ’17 Collaborate with Researchers at university of nevada

Erin Tiwold ’17 and her research advisor, Michael Bertucci, assistant professor of chemistry, traveled to the University of Nevada, Reno, (UNR) this summer as part of a newly established research collaboration with Yftah Tal-Gan, assistant professor of chemistry at UNR. The collaboration focuses on using chemical and microbiological methods to better understand a process called bacterial quorum sensing. The process regulates chemical communication between bacteria that enables them to form colonies and cause infections. Since antibiotic resistance is on the rise, the project is specifically relevant as it may present new avenues to preventing and treating the pathogenic activity of bacteria in humans.  

As a continuation of her SOAR project at Moravian, Tiwold
tested a library of seven synthetic short proteins (known as peptides) in Streptococcus pneumoniae (the microbe that
causes bacterial pneumonia). Interestingly, she discovered
that her peptides enhanced quorum sensing, even at
nanomolar concentrations. Tiwold also had the opportunity
to be mentored by and present her work to the post-doctoral
and graduate students in the Tal-Gan laboratory. While
Tiwold is the first student to take part in this collaborative
work, Bertucci is already looking forward to continuing the collaboration with a second trip in the summer of 2017.