Moran Lab Research
My long-term interests are in the biology of symbiosis, particularly that between multicellular hosts and microbes. Symbioses are central in the evolution of complexity, have evolved many times and are critical to the lifestyles of many animals and plants and also to whole ecosystems, in which symbiotic organisms are key players. The primary reason that symbiosis research is suddenly active, after decades at the margins of mainstream biology, is that DNA technology and genomics give us enormous new ability to discover symbiont diversity, and more significantly, to reveal how microbial metabolic capabilities contribute to the functioning of hosts and biological communities.
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- Korin Jones joins the lab as a Stengl-Wyer Postdoctoral Scholar from the lab of Lisa Belden at Virginia Tech. (September 2023)
- Hailey Anderson, Alejandro Bernardino, Cinthia Hernandez-Granillo, Sylvia Tanguma, Nazhin Nikaeen, Jay Maganti, and Ethan Yu join the lab as Undergraduate Research Assistants. (September 2023)
- Congratulations to undergraduate Allen Xue on being awarded a student Honorable Mention for his poster at the Evolution 2023 meeting . (June 2023)
MEDIA COVERAGE
- Engineering a bee-gut bacterium to prevent a deadly parasite from spreading in Phys.org. (June 13, 2023)
- Genetically engineered gut bacterium could protect bees from parasite in New Scientist. (June 12, 2023)
- Moran to Receive Waksman Award in Microbiology from NAS covered by UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences. (January 2023)