News from SoMAS’ NAno-Raman Molecular Imaging Laboratory, NARMIL
12 November 2021.
Technology that Measures Cell-by-Cell Variation in Growth Rates Could Impact Many Fields
STONY BROOK, NY, November 12, 2021 – The genomic revolution has enabled researchers to assess cell-by-cell genetic variations, but very few techniques exist to measure cell-by-cell metabolic variations, a more powerful way to understand cell responses to changing environmental conditions. Researchers from Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), led by Gordon T. Taylor, PhD, demonstrated that Raman microspectroscopy can accurately measure cell-by-cell variations in growth rates of the bacterium E. coli grown in a broth medium. They validated the Raman-based technique against independent traditional population-based spectroscopic and mass spectrometric measurements.
“The technique emerging from our laboratory can be applied to the study of free-living and host-associated microbiomes, which could prove crucial in understanding more about their functional responses to stressors,” says Taylor, Professor and Director of the NAno Raman Molecular Laboratory (NARMIL) at SoMAS. “We also believe this is an enabling technology to examine individuality in cell populations and could have broad applications in microbiology, cell biology and biomedicine.”
Details of the technique and results are published in the American Society of Microbiology’s Applied and Environmental Microbiology. (PDF) A visual of the technique is also highlighted on the cover of the journal edition.
23 October 2015
In 2014, the NAno-Raman Molecular Imaging Laboratory (NARMIL) was established by an NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant. SoMAS Professor Gordon Taylor, a marine molecular microbiologist, is the Director and Associate Professor Daniel Knopf, an atmospheric chemist and microphysicist, is Associate Director. We happily welcome Tatiana (Tanya) Zaliznyak as our new Raman-AFM Specialist, a trained physicist with extensive experience in spectroscopic techniques that greatly enrich NARMIL’s capabilities. She enables NARMIL to extend its unique services to researchers across the SBU campus, on other campuses and within industry. Read more:
Phone: 631.632.3146
email: NARMIL@stonybrook.edu
“Answers through the Process of Illumination”