MacRobertson Scholarship Report 2014/15
Jana Hiltner
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About me
I am Jana Hiltner ,a final year PhD student at the Strathclyde
Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS) at the
University of Strathclyde in the laboratory of Dr. Paul A Hoskisson. I
am originally from Germany and came to Glasgow to do my PhD in
Microbiology in 2011.
My research is on the metabolism of soil bacteria, especially a group
that are called Streptomyces. They are of great interest in
biotechnology due to their ability to produce a range of bioactive molecules such as
antibiotics, anticancer and immunosuppressive compounds. We are investigating the supply
of precursors for those compounds from metabolism and how we can reroute metabolism
in order to get higher yields of these useful compounds.
I received a total £2250 for a 10 week visit to the Laboratorio Nacional de Genomica para la
Biodiversidad (Langebio) in Irapuato, Guanajuato in Mexico from January till April 2015. I
was working in the group of Dr. Francisco Barona Gomez and with Christopher Henry in
Argonne (Chicago, USA).
Why did I apply for the Scholarship?
We have already been collaborating with Dr Barona-Gomez for about two years and a visit
to his labortory allowed us to intensify the already existing collaboration but also broaden it,
developing a new aspect for my PhD research. We had already quite a lot of laboratory work
completed, but were missing some of the evolutionary aspects of it. Since one major focus
in Dr Barona Gomez group is on the evolution of metabolic pathways it was the perfect
opportunity to learn how to do such analysis and apply it to our common interest.
Furthermore due to the existing collaboration of Dr. Barona with Dr Henry in Chicago I was
able to start some work on a metabolic model for our system.
Figure 1. The campus of the Langebio and the laboratory in Irapuato, Mexico
MacRobertson Scholarship Report 2014/15
Jana Hiltner
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Details of my visit
I travelled to Irapuato, a city located about 220 miles northeast of Mexico City in the state of
Guanajuato. The Langebio is one of ten top research centres of the Centre for Research and
Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (Centro de Investigación y de Estudios
Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional). The research in this centre is the National
Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity with the goal to bring together interdisciplinary
groups to carry out cutting-edge research.
During my stay I was able to look at the evolution of the
central metabolism of Streptomyces- we created a genomic
database with more than 600 species of Streptomyces and
related species and analysed the expansion of central
metabolic pathways. These expansions can occur due two
different reasons, either by a duplication of a gene (inside the
Figure 2 Streptomyces culture on a
solid culture medium
same organism) or a horizontal gene transfer (from a
different species) and these events can lead to new
metabolic functions. However our interest was more towards understanding if those
expansions are linked to the ability to produce such a variety of specialised metabolites.
After identifying the gene expansions we looked at their evolutionary history to find out
about their origin.
For one of the expansions we found, we created a mutant in both copies of the gene that
will be of great utility in future studies to determine the role of gene duplications and their
role in the precursor supply.
Furthermore I was also able to help and work in some other research projects with in Dr
Barona-Gomez’s - this made me feel particularly welcome and a part of the group.
I was also able to attend a postgraduate taught class on Computational Biology, which
allowed me to study the theoretical part of the methods I have been using. It also allowed
me to meet other investigators from the Institute such as: Mauricio Tripp, Sean Rovito, Luis
Delaye and Cei Abreu as well as students. I particularly enjoyed the lectures by Miguel
Nakamura from the Centro de Investigacion en Matematicas (CIMAT) in Guanajuato on
Bayesian Statistics, which were very informative and helpful. I think the combination of
practically and theoretical learning as well as the high quality of the course allowed me to
efficiently apply the newly acquired skills to my own research.
Towards the end of my stay I was also able to start our collaboration with Janaka Edirisinghe
a Post Doctoral researcher from Christopher Henry’s group in Chicago on how to obtain a
metabolic model on Streptomyces with the data that were obtained during the stay in
Mexico as well as with the data we had previously obtained in Glasgow. This part of the
work is still ongoing.
MacRobertson Scholarship Report 2014/15
Jana Hiltner
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Impact of the Travel Scholarship
The scholarship has allowed me enhance the impact of my research, as I am now able to
include a thorough analysis of the evolution of the enzymes involved in the precursor supply
in my PhD thesis and also in future publications, which has been only briefly explored
beforehand.
I was able to get to know another laboratory and had the chance to exchange a lot of ideas
and discuss my research with members of that laboratory. I feel it has broadened my
interest towards the evolutionary and ecological aspects of the biology of the bacteria that I
am studying. I have acquired new skills, especially computational skills that can be widely
applied in other research areas and questions and I think will prove very useful in my future
career.
Personally I think it has been a great experience to get to know another country and culture
and to work with new people to deepen an already existing collaboration as well as
beginning a new one. The experience was very beneficial for developing data towards my
PhD but I think it goes beyond and will probably continue to influence my career choices
and the research questions I would like to investigate in the future. I am very grateful for
this scholarship which allowed me to take this opportunity beneficial both professionally
and personally.
Figure 3 Goodbye party on my last weekend
Figure 4 City Centre in Irapuato