{"id":223492,"date":"2025-10-16T03:32:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T08:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/undergrads-uncover-conserved-copper-binding-gene-cluster-in-marine-bacteria"},"modified":"2025-10-16T03:32:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T08:32:37","slug":"undergrads-uncover-conserved-copper-binding-gene-cluster-in-marine-bacteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/undergrads-uncover-conserved-copper-binding-gene-cluster-in-marine-bacteria","title":{"rendered":"Undergrads uncover conserved copper-binding gene cluster in marine bacteria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/undergrads-uncover-conserved-copper-binding-gene-cluster-in-marine-bacteria2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This fall, 20 Georgia Tech students published a paper\u2014the culmination of work done during a semester-long laboratory course. During the semester, students analyzed genomes sequenced from marine samples collected in Key West, Florida\u2014doing hands-on original bioinformatics research on par with graduate students and working with bioinformatics tools to explore drug discovery potential.<\/p>\n<p>The course, BIOS 4,590, is a research project lab for senior biology majors that provides an opportunity for professors to share their expertise with students in a hands-on environment. In his class, Associate Professor Vinayak (Vinny) Agarwal, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Biological Sciences, aimed to introduce undergraduates to advanced bioinformatics tools through applied research using new-to-science raw data.<\/p>\n<p>The resulting <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acschembio.5c00507\" target=\"_blank\">paper<\/a>, \u201cPhylogenomic Identification of a Highly Conserved Copper-Binding RiPP Biosynthetic Gene Cluster in Marine Microbulbifer Bacteria,\u201d which was recently published in <i>ACS Chemical Biology<\/i>, involves the historically understudied genus of Microbulbifer, a type of bacteria often associated with sponges and corals. These microbial communities are rich sources of natural products, small biological molecules often associated with medicine and drug discovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This fall, 20 Georgia Tech students published a paper\u2014the culmination of work done during a semester-long laboratory course. During the semester, students analyzed genomes sequenced from marine samples collected in Key West, Florida\u2014doing hands-on original bioinformatics research on par with graduate students and working with bioinformatics tools to explore drug discovery potential. The course, BIOS [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}