In mid-May we had our annual lab retreat. I am a little slow in posting pictures!

Once again, we held the retreat up in Maine thanks to the generosity
of the Newell Family and Pete Newell, a Ph.D. student in the lab.

It was a really fun and productive retreat. As part of the presentations
we usually do some career development activities. This year,
two soon-to-be-post docs in the lab, Russell Monds and Dan MacEachran,
talked about their experiences looking for a post-doc.



posted by George at 2:44 PM

We've have several new additions to the lab this year.

Alicia Ballok (L) and Chelsea Boyd are two new Ph.D. students
who joined the lab in June. They'll be spending the summer
working on a couple of different projects each.


The Emilys, Emily Trentacoste (L) and Emily Summers are
Dartmouth College undergraduates who worked in the lab
the past school year and are also working here over the summer.


Mike Danziger is a high school student from St. Anne's
School in NYC. He is the student of a former student of mine,
JP Connolly.


And Katrina Mateo is spending the summer in the lab
as part of the SURF summer research program. She
is a Vassar College student.

posted by George at 1:46 PM

A couple members of the lab went down to the ASM meeting in Boston. We had the opportunity for a nice lab dinner with current and former members of the group. We got together for a traditional New England lobster boil. Very fun!


posted by George at 3:16 PM

Russell Monds is now Dr. Monds. He defended his thesis last week. He's spent the past few years studying the role of phosphate in the regulation of biofilm formation by Pseudomonas fluorescens. His outside examiner was Dr. Jack Heinemann who came all the way from New Zealand.

Russell will be heading off to Stanford as a BioX fellow (http://biox.stanford.edu/) later this summer.





Here are Russell, Mark Silby (another Kiwi, currently in Boston) and Jack.


posted by George at 2:57 PM

Dan MacEachran successfully defended his Ph.D. last week.
Here he is giving his defense talk with the structure of his favorite
protein behind him. Our thanks to Marvin Whiteley, his outside examiner.

Dan is off to MIT in a month or so to do a post-doc with Anthony Sinskey.


posted by George at 9:10 AM

A recent paper published in Infection and Immunity by Greg Anderson, a post-doc in the lab, along with Sophie Marquis who is a post-doc with Bruce Stanton in the Department of Physiology here at Dartmouth Medical School, was selected as a "SpotLight" article. The work describes a new model system for studying biofilms grown on airway cells. The work is highlighted at Dartmouth's website today.


Greg Anderson, Ph.D.

Check out the paper is here.



posted by George at 11:18 AM

Kyle Cady, a second year Ph.D. student in the lab was just awarded a slot on the Molecular Pathogenesis Training Grant. Congrats!


posted by George at 5:08 PM

Congratulations are in order for Christine Toutain. She won the Harry Hirsch Leiter Award for the Best Paper, Ocular Microbiology and Immunology Group, 2006 for her paper with Mike Zegans on the study of the detergent PS80 and its role in biofilm formation byeye-related pathogens. The award was presented at this years meeting.

Here's Christine showing off her award.


posted by George at 4:44 PM

Shannon Hinsa, a former graduate student in the lab, has recently started her new job as an Assistant Professor of Biology at Grinnell College in Iowa. She spent several years as a postdoc at Michigan State University studying with Jim Tiedje and Mike Thomashaw, and her research topics at Grinnell focus on microbial communities in cold weather climates and prairies.

Here she is relaxing in her new office!



She starts teaching in a few weeks, so she is relaxing while she has the chance!

Check out her web page here.
posted by George at 10:16 AM

We've had some new additions to the lab this summer. Kyle (on the left) is a new Ph.D. student in the lab. He comes to us from Minnesota. Julia, currently an undergraduate at Middlebury College, is back working in the lab. She is an old hand in the lab, have spent time with us during her days back in high school.




Riley McLean (top) is a summer student from Boston College who is participating in the SURF program. Fatima Yousef (bottom) is a graduate student visiting us for the summer from Granada, Spain where she works with Juan Ramos and Manolo Espinosa-Urgel.



posted by George at 12:43 PM

We just returned from our 2007 lab retreat. This year, Pete Newell, a graduate student in the lab agreed to host us at his family's house on Rangeley Lake in Maine. It is a beautiful spot and we had fantastic weather. Here are a couple of pictures from the retreat.

Here a couple of shots of the area:






And a group photo on the porch




Here a few pics of the presentations, including top to bottom, Dan, Pete, Jeff, and Russell, who is preparing for his presentation. Dan, Pete & Russell are all Ph.D. students in the lab. Jeff is a former Dartmouth undergrad who'll be heading off to MIT for graduate school in the fall.












Pete and Russell cooked a fantastic dinner on the second night.




And we had some down time too. On a walk one morning I saw a pretty good sized moose track (that's my size 11 foot for comparison). And there was some good swimming in the somewhat chilly lake (middle). We also had a good hike that ended with a group photo on top of the fire tower.








posted by George at 4:57 PM

Many members of lab recently attended the Biofilms 2007 conference in Quebec, CA. I think it was my favorite of the 4 Biofilms meetings I've attended. There were a great diversity of talks touching many areas in the field.

It was also a time to catch up with friends and colleagues. We had an O'Toole lab reunion, with 15 of us getting together for a big dinner at a traditional Quebec restaurant in an old part of the city. Here is a shot of the lab reunion dinner:


posted by George at 2:11 PM

Judy Merritt, Dan MacEachran & Russell Monds, all graduate students in the lab, just returned from the 50th Wind River Conference on Prokaryotic Biology near Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park in Colorado. All three gave talks with Judy and Russell awarded prizes for their presentations.
posted by George at 4:29 PM

On Sunday June 11, we celebrated Dartmouth's Commencement. Three undergraduates are leaving the lab - Lisa Hammond, Jeff Wagner & Sarah Buckingham. Lisa is heading to medical school at Mt. Sinai in NYC, Jeff will be working in the lab for a year and intends to head to graduate school after that and Sarah will take a year off before heading to medical school.

Here are a couple of photos.














Jeff (L, the tall one) and Sarah (R, long blonde hair) wait in line to receive their diplomas.






After the ceremony, I posed with Jeff (L) and Lisa (R) in front of Dartmouth Hall.





And here is a view across the green before the graduating students have taken their seats. While it was cloudy, it never did rain!
posted by George at 3:04 PM

Nicky Caiazza, who defended his Ph.D. last fall, returned to Hanover to participate in the Dartmouth Medical School Class Day graduation.

Here are a couple of pictures.











Nicky and I in our regalia (L) and Nicky receiving his hood (R).



Here are a group of Ph.D. candidates from our MCB graduate program just before the graduation ceremony.
posted by George at 2:56 PM