Institution: UPR Mayaguez Campus

Email: patricia.ortiz3@upr.edu

Human pathogens thrive through association with multiple cell types and their interaction with the extracellular matrix (ECM), are often structured as biofilms. Functional metagenomics provides a combinatorial, culture-independent, inexpensive platform to uncover polymicrobial interactions in the context of human disease, allowing diverse strategies to recreate testing substrates such as the ECM. This project involves the screening and characterization of metagenomic libraries expressed in model bacteria, to dissect modulators of the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans biofilms in the presence of ECM components