The Alber Lab
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These are the people who make the lab happen.  Feel free to click on our names to contact us.
       
The People

Current Members
Birgit Alber

Dr. Birgit Alber

Michael Carter 
Michael CarterMichael spent his undergraduate years at Indiana University, Bloomington where he finished a B.S. in Microbiology and a B.A. in Biochemsitry.  At Indiana,  he worked with Dr. Clay Fuqua on microbial ecology in tick populations across the United States.  He is now working on elucidating the mechanisms responsible for regulating carbon flow through the ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway and the methylmalonyl-CoA pathway.



Steven Carlson
The Steven CarlsonSteven is a former high school teacher from Logan, Ohio who graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from Ohio University.  He is now a graduate student in Ohio State's Microbiology Department and is tasked with comparing Ccr (crotonyl-CoA carboxylase/reductase) and AcuI (acrylyl-CoA reductase) in an effort to identify which features create the distinctions in their reductive strategies.



Sammy Kotran
Sammy Kotran  





Past Members
Marie Asao
Marie Asao

Phillip Schuld
Phillip SchuldPhillip was a Microbiology major whose interests included rock climbing and long distance running.  He worked to genetically and phenotypically characterize transposon mutants generated by large-scale transposon mutageneis performed in the Microbial Genetics courses.  He finished his undergraduate work with a thesis in which he contributed to the characterization of the role of mcm (methylmalonyl-CoA mutase) in the methylmalonyl-CoA pathway in Rhodobacter sphaeroides.


Jessica Adair
Jessica AdairJessica graduated with her B.S. in Biological Engineering
 while also participating in the band as a trumpet player.  During her time in the lab, she identified a potential TRAP transporter for glutamate.  Immediately following her Bachelor's degree, she worked for the EPA, frolicking in streams and traveling all over Ohio.  She is now a graduate student at Ohio State in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program - Molecular and Cellular Development.  






Kelsey Baron
Proteinase KKelsey graduated with a B.S. in Biology and a second B.S. in Spanish.  In the lab, Kelsey was responsible for much of the molecular biology.  She worked toward developing markerless, in-frame chromosomal deletions of the genes involved in the ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway.  She is now a student at the University of Toledo Medical Center.






Jordan Allen
Jordan AllenJordan graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.S. in Molecular Genetics.  He worked with Marie in screening R. sphaeroides transposon mutants in an effort to identify genes that are required for growth on a variety of carbon sources.  See a poster of his work at the 2010 Denman Undergraduate Research Forum.  He is now studying at Ohio State's College of Medicine.  He intends to specialize in urology.



Emily Smith
Emily SmithEmily graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology.  In addition to volunteering for Wonders of Our World, she also worked with Marie in identifying genes from genetic screens that are resposible for R. sphaeroides growth on a number of substrates.
 See a poster of her work at the 2010 Denman Undergraduate Research Forum.  She is now a graduate student in the Integrated Biomedical Graduate Program here at Ohio State.  




Lauren Branditz
Lauren Branditz
Lauren graduated from the Ohio State University with a B.S. in Microbiology in 2009.  She accepted an offer to attend the Ohio State's College of Medicine where she is currently a student persuing her M.D.  The lab is grateful for her work on laying the foundation for the study of the regulation of the ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway.