Congratulations to Alexis Kirkendall, PhD student in the Microbiology Program, for winning a graduate student research award from the Bioscience Association of Maine!!
Over the next year, she’ll focus on culturing bacteria that we previously isolated from mice consuming a steamed broccoli sprout diet, to test their capacity to grow amongst the gut pathogen Helicobacter pylori and produce the anti-inflammatory sulforphane under different conditions. This will be part of Alexis’ larger PhD project investigating which bacteria produce sulforaphane in the gut, how they do it, and under which circumstances. It complements the collective lab research on how broccoli sprouts and gut microbes can be used to resolve Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Alexis Kirkendall
Doctor of Philosophy student, Microbiology
Alexis is from Ohio and initially joined the lab in 2022 when she was majoring in Biology at Heidelberg University, through the Summer 2022 REU, during which she divided her time researching Cryptosporidium in cows, helping in the MSE Symposium, and aiding in the Camel Rumen Microbiome Project. Alexis continued her work remotely, and returned to Maine in summer 2023 as a research assistant for several projects related to gut microbes, diet, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Her research interests are in genetics and she has a love for the fascinating world of microbes.
She returned in January 2024 as a graduate student in the Microbiology program!
The Ishaq Lab 