Project Mentor: Professor Dylan Shropshire, Biological Sciences
2026 Impact Fellows:
Caleb Borbi '28
Makena Johnson '29
Project Description:
What enables a bacterium to become one of the most widespread microbes living inside animals?
Wolbachia has achieved extraordinary success, inhabiting the cells of more than half of all arthropod species. Yet the genetic and molecular traits that enable this bacterium to spread and persist across diverse animal hosts remain poorly understood. This project will investigate the mechanisms underlying Wolbachia’s remarkable success, addressing a fundamental question in biology: What makes an endosymbiont thrive?
Understanding these mechanisms will advance our knowledge of how microbes shape animal biology and evolve successful associations with their hosts. It may also inform public health strategies that use pathogen-blocking Wolbachia strains to combat mosquito-borne diseases, including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya.
