Fellow Story
Garren discovers sulfurous chemical that leads pathogens to coral
“This is the first time we’ve been able to sneak a peek at a coral pathogen’s behavior in real time, as it responds to the chemical cues leaking into the seawater from its host,” says postdoc Melissa Garren of MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), first author on a paper about this work that appears Dec. 12 in the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal. Professor Roman Stocker of CEE is lead researcher on the project.
“By doing so, we discovered that these tiny cells have an amazing array of tricks up their sleeves for finding a host, and that they can preferentially navigate toward hosts that are stressed,” Garren says.
