The Ishaq Lab is ecstatic to welcome Alexis Kirkendall for the third time — this time as a PhD student of Microbiology!!

Alexis Kirkendall originally joined the lab in summer 2022 for ten weeks through the Research Experience for Undergraduates program through the NRT Initiative for One Health & the Environment. During that time, she learned various laboratory techniques related to microbiology and genomics, and participated in several projects which investigated the microbes associated with several species of livestock. Alexis picked these up so quickly that she acted as project manager for one of them and trained other undergraduates and a graduate student in the lab. Within a few weeks of arriving here, Alexis was working independently in the lab, and we began talking about her joining the lab for a graduate program.

Over the 2022/2023 academic year, Alexis continued to work with me remotely as she went back to continue her bachelor’s at Heidelberg College. This included data analysis and visualization of RNA transcriptomic data from the rumen of camels, as well as presenting results from her summer work at the UMaine REU student symposium, the Heidelberg College student research symposium, and a national conference:

• Kirkendall*, A., Ishaq, S. Taking on Multiple Research Projects in a NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Summer Program as a Disabled Undergraduate Student. ABRCMS annual meeting, Anaheim, CA, November 9-12, 2022.

In summer 2023, she again joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant, where she worked with a team of undergraduate and graduate students working on anaerobic culturing and growth trials for bacteria isolated from mice consuming a broccoli sprout diet, to determine their activity for converting a dietary compound into an anti-inflammatory to resolve Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She got our robotic liquid handler programmed for that project, too! The summer work laid the groundwork for the dissertation work she’ll be completing with me.

Alexis graduated early (Dec 2023) and is rejoining #TeamBroccoli to work on how different cooking preparations affects the way gut microbes turn an inactive component into an ani-inflammatory in the intestines, as a way to reduce symptoms in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. We have been benchmarking some of those gut microbes for their capacity for GLR metabolism to produce SFN, and our long-term goal is to develop a dietary preparation of broccoli sprouts and a probiotic which have therapeutic effects against IBD in humans.

In addition to the lab work and research, Alexis has also been heavily involved in the Microbes and Social Equity working group. She participated in MSE’s symposium in 2022 and 2023, acting as a notetaker to facilitate discussions between invited speakers, MSE members, and other audience members, and organizing of the meeting by helping to create agendas and notes documents on behalf of the session organizers. In 2024, she’ll continue to help me curate events and develop content for MSE.