Sam Light
Assistant Professor
Sam received a BA from Bard College and a PhD from Northwestern University for structural and biochemical studies of enzymes in microbially biosynthetic pathways. As a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, his research addressed the basis and significance of metabolic properties of the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Starting at the University of Chicago in 2020, his research takes a biochemical and genetic approach towards studying how beneficial and pathogenic bacteria interact with their mammalian hosts.
Noreen Bentley
Administrative Assistant
nbentley@bsd.uchicago.edu
Alexander Little
Postdoctoral Scholar
Alex is a through and through microbiologist, with his B.S. in microbiology from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. His graduate work focused on the genetics and biochemistry of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, particularly a two-component regulatory system and its proposed sensing of the respiratory chain. He is interested in how bacteria within the anaerobic microbiome may be shuttling electrons to molecules other than oxygen in order to respire and proliferate in a particular niche.
Deepti Sharan
Postdoctoral Scholar
Deepti received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Biotechnology and completed her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Cell Biology from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India in 2019. In 2020, she moved to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities as a postdoctoral associate and joined the Light Lab at the University of Chicago in 2022. Her previous works were related to phenotypic heterogeneity in various bacterial systems like E. coli, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Shewanella oneidensis and how that affects the response of bacteria towards different antibiotics or complex nanomaterials. In the Light lab, Deepti is interested in understanding the phenotypic heterogeneity in the gut microbes and the factors influencing colonization potential of microbes from Class Clostridia in the gut. Outside of research, she likes photography and travelling.
Isaac Younker
Research Technician
Isaac received a BS in Microbiology and a BA in Spanish from The University of Alabama in 2020. Before joining the Light Lab, Isaac’s research experience focused on techniques for the selective isolation of jumbo bacteriophages. His current project investigates the role commensal bacteria play in the unique redox reactions of the human gut.
Shuo Huang
Graduate Student
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Shuo received her B.S. in biology from the University of Washington in 2019 and joined the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics program here at the University of Chicago as a Ph.D. student. Her previous projects during her undergraduate research emphasized the genetic and biochemical properties of interbacterial antagonism mediated by Type VI Secretion System (T6SS). Her current project in the Light lab focuses on the biochemistry of protein flavinylation in the extracytosolic space.
Agnieszka Grelska
Visiting Student
Aga has finished her B.S. in Biotechnology at the University of Silesia in Poland and in 2019 started her M.S. in Biotechnology at the University of Wroclaw. Her research area involves analysis of the replication process in Streptomyces bacteria. In 2021 she joined the Light Lab as part of a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Student Exchange Program. The goal of her project in the Light Lab is to identify gut bacteria that grow on DNA.