Guest post: Kevin Carpenter on his new microbial photo exhibit at the Exploratorium in SF #SoCool

Special guest post from Kevin Carpenter who has microbe photos featured at the Exploratorium. One of my colleagues who does research on the microbes that live in the hindguts of lower termites once remarked that interesting organisms can be found in the most unusual of places. And the lower termite hindgut, by almost anyone’s estimation, is certainly an unusual place. It is also a fascinating place for anyone interested in biology, ecology, evolution, biochemistry, or beautiful natural forms and patterns. Since my undergraduate days in the early 90s, I have had a deep interest in the tree of life, especially eukaryote phylogeny. After a Ph.D. in Plant Biology at U.C. Davis, I headed off to the University of British Columbia to work in Patrick Keeling's lab to pursue these interests. Anyone who has this peculiar obsession (actually, I think it's peculiar not to have this obsession!) knows that the eukaryote tree comprises mostly protists, and they arguably encompass greater structural, cell biological, biochemical, (and certainly evolutionary!) diversity than all plants, animals, and fungi combined. In Patrick's lab I developed methods for SEM and TEM imaging of these microbes to investigate their phenotypic character evolution, functional morphology, and symbioses with bacteria in the light of molecular phylogenetic data. In addition to a number of publications (with more to come) and talks in Russia, Germany, Norway, etc. my electron micrographs have been featured on ...
Source: The Tree of Life - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Source Type: blogs