Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Amy Hitchcock Camp and her students study a soil bacterium called Bacillus subtilis, which can transform itself into a dormant, resilient cell type called a spore. By studying how B. subtilis becomes a spore—a process called “sporulation”—the Camp Lab can ask fundamental questions about bacterial development, cell-cell communication, and gene regulation. The answers to these questions, in turn, may inform the study and treatment of developmental disorders, or could lead to the identification of novel targets for antibiotic treatment of bacterial pathogens. In this seminar, Amy Camp will present data collected by previous students in her lab that uncovers how the developing spore executes a precise transition from early to late gene expression. She will also share newer data, including some collected by current Camp Lab members, that supports a model in which protein degradation drives metabolic shutdown at a relatively early stage of spore development. Last, she will describe some future projects in the lab and indicate how new students might get involved!

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