Social behaviours such as cooperation, cheating and spite have all been observed in bacteria. I am studying the cooperative production of siderophores (essential iron-binding molecules) by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a well-known opportunistic pathogen of hospital and cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. I analyse the relationships between cooperative P. aeruginosa strains and mutant strains that produce relatively few or none of these iron-binding molecules and instead take advantage of the siderophores being secreted and shared by neighbouring cooperative individuals. My aim is to compare this behaviour (and others) in existing laboratory strains of P. aeruginosa to that of strains serially isolated from the lungs of CF patients. It is hoped that this study will help us to understand how these social behaviours evolve over the course of chronic CF lung infections as P. aeruginosa adapt to this new, human environment.
CV
2006 - 2009 PhD student, University of Edinburgh. Thesis: The Social Evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the human cystic fibrotic lung.
Supervisors: Ashleigh Griffin & Stuart West.
2006 Laboratory assistant to Ashleigh Griffin,
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, the University of Edinburgh, UK.
2001 - 2005 BSc Microbiology & Infection (hons.)
University of Edinburgh, UK.
Publications
Jiricny, N, SP Diggle, SA West, B Evans, G Ballantyne, A Ross-Gillespie, AS Griffin (In press) Fitness correlates with the extent of cheating in a bacterium. Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
[Thoughtomics blog]
Kümmerli, R, N Jiricny, LS Clarke, SA West, AS Griffin (2009) Phenotypic plasticity of a cooperative behaviour in bacteria. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 589-598.