People in the Lab

Anthony Gutierrez, ASU Biology Major and Lab Manager

Tony is optimizing MALDI-TOF MS-based approaches to characterize microalgae. He joined our lab after completing his studies in the Maricopa County Community College District, at Phoenix College and at Glendale Community College. He began his work with microalgae as a member of the prestigious NSF-funded STEM Scholar program at Phoenix College.

Bronwen Steele, Visiting Scholar

Bronwen is faculty member at nearby Estrella Mountain Community College on sabbatical in our lab. She's working with Todd Sandrin to develop new undergraduate microbiology laboratory exercises that allow students to engage in state-of-the-art approaches to microbial characterization (both genomics- and rapid proteomics-based approaches). In addition, she is leading work in our lab examining the roles of the soil microbiome in biological fertilizer efficacy.

Some Recent Graduates of the Sandrin Lab

(includes some who worked in the lab when it was housed at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh)

Graduate

Notes

Beau completed his AAS in Biotechnology at nearby Glendale Community College (GCC) with highest honors. Beau conducted research focused on improving the strain-level resolution of agriculturally and public health relevant bacteria using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Beau was named a member of the All-USA Community College Academic Team. Only 20 students (out of 1,800 nominees!) across the nation received this award! Beau is also a three-time consecutive recipient of the Salt River Project Life Sciences Scholarship and an active participant in NCUIRE. Beau is now (National) Manager of Laboratory Environment, Health, and Safety at Inform Diagnostics, an independent pathology company with labs in Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts, and New York that specializes in Heme, Derm, and GI pathology, as well as Covid-19 PCR diagnostics.

Duane graduated this year after completing his master's degree. He worked with Regina Diaz and others in the lab to explore and develop mass spectrometry-based methods to characterize eukaryotic microorganisms. He continues to collaborate with our lab, working on additional publications resulting from his master's thesis work. He is currently a lab manager at Re-Nature, Inc.

Lin joined our lab as a post-doctoral research associate. Her research focused on: 1) use of microarrays to detect biomarkers of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and 2) MALDI fingerprinting of environmental isolates and communities. Lin earned her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in the lab of Dr. Raina Maier. She's now applying her expertise in mass spectrometry as an employee of Shimadzu Corporation

Regina is completed her microbiology degree and worked in our lab with Duane Barbano to characterize eukaryotic microorganisms using MALDI-TOF MS. She's currently pursuing a master's degree.

Philip, another graduate of nearby GCC, explored novel approaches (e.g., MALDI imaging) to characterize effects of sample preparation and culture conditions on spectrum quality and reproducibility. He was awarded a prestigious Helios Scholars biomedical research internship at the TGen. Check out some of his recent undergraduate research at T-Gen in this poster. In addition, he was awarded a poster presentation award at the ASM Arizona-Southern Nevada Annual Branch Meeting (April 2013)!

Jason worked in our lab examining effects of culture conditions and sample preparation on the quality and reproducibility of MALDI spectra of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Jason was awarded "Best Oral Presentation" at the 2012 annual meeting of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science! In addition, his work with MALDI and MRSA was published recently in Letters in Applied Microbiology.

A graduate of Glendale Community College, Stephanie worked to:1) to optimize MALDI-TOF MS-based approaches to microbial fingerprinting and 2) develop new tools to cultivate difficult-to-culture microorganisms, including those indigenous to Kartchner Caverns, AZ. She earned the 1st place award at the ASU New College Research Expo and published two papers before leaving our lab in 2013.

Ellana is applying to Physician's Assistant (PA) programs.

Nam is now a Public Health Scientist at the Arizona Department of Health Services

Omar is now employed by Food Safety Net

Craig recently published his work describing effects of pH on gene expression in E. coli. Craig also co-authored a recent review article, with Becky Giebel and others in the lab, on microbial fingerprinting using MALDI-TOF MS. He is now employed by Epicentre (an Ilumina company).

Becky has graduated and published her work. Becky worked with Weston Fredenberg (above) to characterize isolates of Enterococcus using mass spectrometry. She is pictured (right) discussing her work with a state representative at the state capitol in Madison, WI. She is now employed by the Sartori Company in Wisconsin.

Tom graduated and published his work using MALDI-TOF-MS to characterize isolates of E. coli.

Phil has graduated and is working with Covance Biopharmaceuticals as an analytical chemist. He co-authored a manuscript with Tom Siegrist recently.

Candace just graduated (with honors!). She now works in the private sector in research for Covance Corporation. Candace's work in our lab focused on characterizing microbial responses to cadmium. She conducted rather extensive growth studies into mechanisms by which pH mediates cadmium toxicity to E. coli K-12.

Chris completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Science at The University of Arizona and is now an employee of Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (A J. Craig Venter company). He is pictured here using performing some sediment sampling on a river. . .in January. . .in Wisconsin.

Doug is now a research microbiologist at Kimberly Clark Corporation. He is pictured here collecting sediment samples from Rush Lake in Wisconsin (in lovely and relatively warmer May).