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Welcome to The Bordenstein Laboratory
We will be moving the lab from Woods Hole, MA to Vanderbilt University this August. Contact Seth by email with questions.
Dr. Seth Bordenstein is an evolutionary geneticist at The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). He is an Assistant Scientist in the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Brown University. Dr. Bordenstein is also a member of the Mobile Genetic Element Cluster housed in the Bay Paul Center. His main interests are in animal-microbe associations, intracellular symbioses, mobile DNA, and speciation.
Wolbachia endosymbionts are an excellent microbial system to study these biological phenomena. The spread of this germline bacterium through the majority of animal species over the last 100 million years represents one of life's great pandemics. Wolbachia infect millions of insect species worldwide in which they alter insect sex lives. They also infect most of the infectious nematodes of humans and canines. The small bacterial genome of Wolbachia is littered with mobile DNA with unknown functions. Thus, this symbiotic system has been shaped by three party interactions between invertebrates, Wolbachia endosymbionts, and their mobile elements such as bacteriophage. Studying this model tripartite system (invertebrates-endosymbionts-phage) will contribute to a fuller understanding of symbiosis and the origin and evolution of widespread, animal-microbe associations. These studies also have applications to improving human health through insect vector control strategies and therapeutics of human filarial diseases.
Link to HHMI / MBL Precollege Science Education Project |
