Developing microbial communities (and human ones too!): Alejandra’s placement report

Our fourth placement report is from Alejandra Ordonez. Alejandra is a research assistant and PhD student in the Future Oak project. She visited the Institute of Environmental Biotechnology at Graz University of Technology, led by Prof. Gabriele Berg. Alejandra’s placement was made possible thanks to additional funding from UKRI to enable some of our researchers to go on placements to different work environments to learn skills and build relationships. 

Alejandra’s work involves isolating the microbiota of healthy oak trees and identifying key members with potential suppressive activity against bacterial pathogens associated with Acute Oak Decline. In the last year of the project, Future Oak are interested in testing synthetic microbial communities (co-cultures of microbes that mimic a natural microbiome) that can potentially prevent disease in oak trees.

The main aims of Alejandra’s 3-day visit to the Berg’s lab was to exchange experiences and ideas about the development of plant biocontrol agents and synthetic microbial communities, and to learn about a microcosm setup for microbiome research developed in Berg’s lab. Our particpants were invited to report on their placement in whatever format they preferred. Alejandra decided to make an infographic describing what she did. You can see this below.