Sonya is a rising senior studying Chemistry at Williams College. At her home institution, Sonya studies the role of beta-lactamase in the development of drug resistance in bacteria under the guidance of Dr. Katie Hart. The Hart lab is interested in how mutations affect the protein’s structure, stability, and function with the hope of gaining new insight into evolution on a molecular level.

During her time at UCLA, Sonya is attempting to characterize the effects of probiotic Nissle E. coli treatment upon the canine gut microbiome. Nissle was one of the first bacterial strains to be used as a probiotic, and it has been observed to have immunomodulatory effects such as the suppression of immune-mediated damage and the upregulation of beneficial responses. Despite the relatively extensive characterization of the Nissle strain compared to other probiotics, greater study is needed to determine the mechanism by which Nissle impacts the microbiome. Sonya will perform 16S rRNA sequencing analysis with QIIME2 to determine the taxonomic composition of the gut microbiome of dogs treated with probiotic Nissle. Changes in the microbiome or species composition before and after probiotic treatment will be documented, and statistical analysis will be performed to measure the relative diversity of species between samples.

Sonya would like to thank the Li lab for their mentorship and would also like to thank the Amgen Foundation in support of her research at UCLA.