国产传媒

Research

Antibiotics are molecules produced by microorganisms that inhibit or kill bacteria. Many antibiotics have been isolated from microorganisms and chemically modified to treat bacterial infections. You have likely taken antibiotics in your lifetime to help fight a bacterial infection. Unfortunately, many bacterial pathogens have developed immunity to clinically available antibiotics, a concept referred to as antibiotic resistance. Therefore, more and more bacterial infections are becoming untreatable due to a lack of effective antibiotics.

Students in my research lab are searching for new antibiotic sources from the soil on campus. Many students start this research in the Bio2 honors lab as part of the and continue characterizing their antibiotic producers in my lab. Another project in my research lab involves studying bacterial interactions to better understand how bacteria compete and communicate with one another in their natural environments and in the presence of antibiotics. My lab also works on a project in collaboration with Dr. Sylvine Deprele from the Physical Sciences Department that involves testing the antibacterial activity of ozonated oils.

Publications

• Peterson, S.N. (2021). Introducing weekly themes to engage students in a microbiology class. J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 22(1). DOI:
• Peterson, S.N. (2017). Using a modified version of Pictionary to help students review course material. J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 18(3). DOI:
• Peterson, S.N. and Reich, N.O. 2010. LRP: a nucleoid-associated protein with gene regulatory functions. In “Bacterial Chromatin” (T. Remus Dame and Charles J. Dorman eds.) Springer publisher, pp. 353-364.
• Peterson, S.N., and Reich, N.O. (2008) Competitive Lrp and Dam assembly at the pap regulatory region: implications for mechanisms of epigenetic regulation. J. Mol. Biol., 383, 92-105.
• Peterson, S.N., Dahlquist, F.W., and Reich, N.O. (2007). The Role of High Affinity Non-specific DNA Binding by Lrp in Transcriptional Regulation and DNA Organization. J. Mol.Biol. 369, 1307-1317.
• Peterson, S. N. & Reich, N. O. (2006). GATC flanking sequences regulate Dam activity: evidence for how Dam specificity may influence pap expression. J. Mol.Biol. 335, 459–472.
• Yun, C.S., Javier, A., Jennings, T., Fisher, M., Hira, S., Peterson, S., Hopkins, B., Reich, N.O., and Strouse, G.F. (2005). Nanometal surface energy transfer in optical rulers, breaking the FRET barrier. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 3115-3119.