James Winkler: A Computational Infrastructure for Understanding Tolerance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBrdljFhe2g Currently, our ability to understand how microbes tolerate different environmental conditions, antibiotic treatments, and other insults is limited by the lack of a centralized resource containing genetic and gene expression data. Dr. James Winkler introduced the creation of a tolerance-focused database (the “Resistome”) and present preliminary analysis of trait interactions. Originally from Houston, Texas, Dr. Winkler completed both a bachelors and PhD in chemical engineering at universities in Texas. He subsequently moved to Colorado to conduct research in the Ryan Gill research group at University of Colorado-Boulder in order to better understand how we are currently engineering bacteria to produce fuels, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals needed for a renewable economy. As a Fulbright scholar, he is extending the research to understand how microbes and other organisms tolerate different types of chemical treatments, including antibiotics. The ultimate goal of my research is to design novel, evolution-resistant methods for combining antibiotics and engineering tolerance phenotypes into industrial biocatalysts.
