Sarah Lucas

post-doctoral research fellow since 2020

Research areas

  • Intestinal Microbiome
  • Microbial Metabolism
  • Anaerobic Microbiology

Education

  • BA: Penn State University (2010)
  • PhD: University of Minnesota (2020)
Sarah Lucas

Background

My graduate work characterized the microbial communities associated with the respiratory tract of individuals with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). I identified anaerobic bacterial communities associated with CRS that collectively degraded mucin glycoproteins, and demonstrated that mucin degradation by these communities can impact the physiology of Staphylococcus aureus. As a postdoc in Pat’s lab, I am currently applying my passion for anaerobic bacteria and metabolism to the study of microbial communities in the human intestinal tract.

Papers from time in Schloss lab

  1. Lapp Z, Sovacool KL, Lesniak N, King D, Barnier C, Flickinger M, Krüger J, Armour CR, Lapp MM, Tallant J, Diao R, Oneka M, Tomkovich S, Moltzau Anderson J, Lucas SK, Schloss PD. 2022. Developing and deploying an integrated workshop curriculum teaching computational skills for reproducible research. The Journal of Open Source Education. DOI: 10.21105/jose.00144.
  2. Barron MR, Sovacool KL, Abernathy-Close L, Vendrov KC, Standke AK, Bergin IL, Schloss PD, Young VB. 2022. Intestinal Inflammation Reversibly Alters the Microbiota to Drive Susceptibility to Clostridioides difficile Colonization in a Mouse Model of Colitis. mBio. 13: e0190422. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01904-22.