Exploring Genomic Diversity in Commensal Escherichia Coli

Research Strategy: Describe how undergraduate and/or graduate students will beexposed to and supervised conducting hands-on research. Describe how students willparticipate in research activities such as planning, execution and/or analysis of research.Formal training plans (e.g., non-research activities, didactic training, seminars) shouldnot be provided.A sound rationale should be offered as to why the approach and the research team,including undergraduate and/or graduate students, are appropriate to accomplish thespecific aims and to make an important scientific contribution.Drs. Stephens and Hess have developed a 10 week laboratory module, piloted in Springquarter of 2017, that will expose dozens of students to hypothesis-driven science utilizingwhole-genomic sequencing and multidimensional phenotypic data. This portion of thesupported research will have the broadest impact on student research and is detailed inmultiple sections of the grant including the Introduction to the Resubmission and theMain Proposal.Santa Clara University Department of Biology does not have a graduate program, thusour research groups consist of the P.I., undergraduate researchers and a lab technicianwhen the lab is funded extramurally. Both Dr. Stephens and Hess have a proven trackrecord of recruiting motivated undergraduate students to collect and analyze primary datain both public health and genomics. We each have several undergraduate student co-authors, including first authors, on peer-reviewed manuscripts. We will continue torecruit and train undergraduate researchers using our methods that have provedsuccessful.Importantly these extramural funds will provide our labs with a lab technician. Thisposition is critical to act as primary point of contact for undergraduate researchers,especially during the academic year when the P.I.s have significant teachingresponsibilities. We have recruited for these positions from amongst our best graduatingresearch students and have had excellent success in this regard. Recent technicianssupported by extramural grants used those positions to further their career paths. Labtechnicians supported by previous RUI grants to Stephens have included Lisandra West(who subsequently received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2012), KellyWatanabe (PharmD, UCSF, 2011), Amanda Lieu (M.D., Tufts University, 2014), andCindy Dick (currently working on her Ph.D. at UC Irvine). In the Hess lab technicianssupported by previous grants have included Cindy Dick (currently working on her Ph.D.at UC Irvine), Kiana Espinosa (currently working on her M.D. at Loyola UniversityChicago), Jillian Gerrity (accepted to medical school at UCSD, working for the non-profit Amigos de Jesus in Honduras) and Farid Tadros (accepted to medical school atAlbert Einstein Medical School).