I call her the the Minister of Microbes, the Baroness of Bacteriology, the Mistress of the Microscopic, Dr. Brittany Needham is our biology expert.

Official Bio:

Dr. Brittany Needham got her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Texas at Austin, where she worked to understand and engineer the bacterial surface structure, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the laboratory of M. Stephen Trent.  LPS provides a barrier against the often hostile environment encountered by a bacterial cell. The bioactive portion of LPS that anchors the molecule into the cell surface is lipid A (endotoxin).  In its natural, unmodified form, lipid A can over stimulate the human immune system, leading to severe inflammation and toxic shock.  After graduating in 2014, she began as a post doc in Sarkis Mazmanian’s lab. Here, she is studying the gut microbiota and how intestinal bacteria affect diverse host functions. Her main focus is to understand how gut bacteria are involved in the etiology and potential treatment of autism spectrum disorder.