R E S E A R C H

• Sponge-microbial interactions, determine what controls microbial community structure within a host organism

• Increasing microbial recoverability from various environments, create and apply novel media and media additions in order to cultivate the largest percent of the community

• Elucidation of microbially-produced secondary metabolites that serve as anti-microbials

• Applying molecular genetic techniques to examine the microbial community associated with various environments, particular focus on functional genes