Rachel C Newsome,

My undergraduate research was done in the lab of Dr. Steven Bruner in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida, investigating the natural product biosynthesis of the colibactin pks gene cluster in E. coli, specifically focusing on the mechanistic enzymology of the multidrug and toxic compound extrusion protein ClbM. I worked in Dr. Christian Jobin’s lab as a lab technician from 2016 to 2018, and started as a graduate student in the Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences in Fall 2018 in the advanced concentrations of Cancer Biology and Clinical and Translational Science. My graduate research focused on the role of the gut microbiota in cancer immunotherapy. The focus of my postdoctoral research is to leverage the immune modulatory properties of the gut microbiome to overcome treatment resistance through an innovative approach developing bacterial small molecules using medicinal chemistry, overcoming the limitations of live bacterial therapy. I use specific pathogen free and germ free mouse and zebrafish models of cancer and inflammation, bacterial culturomics, flow cytometry, primary cell culture, histology/pathology, next-generation sequencing, and immune checkpoint therapies to dissect the role of specific bacterial products in driving anti-tumor synergy with anti-PD-1 therapy.