Keith "Y2K" Garcia
Lab Manager
Research Interests
Polymicrobial infections have been of interest for a long time, since Louis Pasteur. After the advent of new technologies and techniques, scientists began to study the genetics and virulence of single organisms; thus, studying polymicrobial infections was essentially put on the backburner. Now we realized that there is much more to an infection than a single bacterial species being the only culprit. We know that other microbes are present and now it is necessary to try and deduce what exactly is happing in these infections. Is there competition between species? Is there synergy? Is there spatial organization that selects for only a handful of different bacteria to be present in an infection, while excluding others? Answering these and many other questions will allow us to understand how different microbes interact with one another in polymicrobial infections. With this in mind, I am currently working alongside Apollo Stacy on developing a transposon library of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aa) to apply Tn-seq. This will allow us to understand the fitness of Aa in polymicrobial interactions. I am also working with Dr. Keith Turner on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We are applying molecular techniques to introduce a plasmid construct that will ultimately help with the identification of the presence of different P.aeruginosa strains in co-infections. This project should be a useful tool that can be applied to many different strains of bacteria that could readily accept this plasmid construct.
About Keith
I was born and raised in South Texas in a city called Laredo! It’s scorching hot weather and great Mexican food defines this city (in my opinion). After high school, I attended the University of Texas at San Antonio for one year and transferred to UT at Austin in the fall of 2010. I graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology. I enjoy various outdoor activities such as disc golf, biking, as well as enjoying a nice fermented beverage along with amazing Austin food, and of course, the occasional dessert at Whole Foods (which is eaten outdoors). My goal is to attend medical school and study Oncology where, hopefully, I can do my own research and continue to apply the skills that I acquired working here in the Whiteley Lab.
