The Jiggins Lab Webpage
Suzan Ok
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Research Interests |
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My primary research interests include microbiology and host-symbiont dynamics. For my project, I am investigating the coevolutionary relationship between the fruit fly Drosophila and the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia, which is found in arthropods and nematodes. This bacterium confers antiviral protection on Drosophila, but may also have parasitic impacts on the host. I am currently looking at the costs of antiviral protection in D. simulans by determining the effects of different Wolbachia strains on fruit fly reproduction. In addition, I would like to understand how tissue tropism and host shifts affect antiviral protection and related traits. These experiments may inform efforts to utilize an optimum strain of Wolbachia in preventing the transmission of mosquito-borne viruses such as West Nile and dengue.
Undergraduate Research Blog: http://research.blogs.wm.edu/author/suzan/ |
Education and Employment |
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2013 - Present MPhil candidate, Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, UK
Summer 2012 Internship as ORISE Fellow in Molecular Virology Lab, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD Summer 2011 Internship as Cummings Scholar in Bacteriophage Ecology Lab, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 2009 - 2013 Bachelor of Science in Biology, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA |