Achievement

Amy Biddle (IGERT Associate, microbiology) is working to identify interactions between members of anaerobic microbial communities that drive the process of plant degradation forward. Critical to these efforts is the ability to visualize the structure of microbial communities on the surface of plant material at the highest possible resolution. Supported by an ICE IGERT Student Training Grant, Amy completed a research externship in the Manfred Auer laboratory at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL). For three weeks, Amy learned sample preparation methods for the most innovative techniques in transmission electron microscopy (TEM). She prepared colonized plant material samples from her cultures for TEM and focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) imaging. Amy described her experience as, "an exciting opportunity to access and apply innovative techniques in high resolution microscopy to the study of anaerobic plant degrading community architecture."