Michael Mills
Hi, my name is Michael Mills. I am a United States citizen originally from Ghana, West Africa. I went to college at The University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia and graduated with a degree in the Pharmaceutical Sciences.”
My ultimate goal, as a freshman, was to earn a doctorate degree in Pharmacy. This changed my sophomore year when I started working at Synageva Biopharmaceuticals. Through the experiences I gained from working in a rapidly growing Pharmaceutical company, I realized my interest lay in the ever-changing field of scientific research. As a result, I changed my degree track to the Pharmaceutical Sciences where I learned about the various aspects of drug formulation and delivery. This whet my appetite for research, and though I have broad interests in varying research areas, my experience in my current PREP lab has helped me recognize my attraction to Microbiology as a fundamental science. After graduate school, I plan to continue gaining experience as a post-doc before venturing into academia.
The PREP program was perfect for me because my late career change to the pharmaceutical sciences led to two semesters of research experience as an undergraduate student. I felt, THAT experience was not enough to prepare me for graduate school. Now I plan to use my time at PREP@UGA to be adequately prepared to perform in the best Microbiology graduate programs in the nation.
My current research and faculty mentor is Dr. Vincent Starai.
Brugia Malayi, a nematode pathogenic to humans, causes a crippling disease known as filariasis in tropical locations. This nematode harbors endosymbiotic bacteria from the genus Wolbachia, and these bacteria are known to be required for the nematode to survive within a host. Therefore, understanding how these bacteria live inside the nematode may provide information towards the treatment of filariasis.
Wolbachia Wbm0076 is a gene which encodes for an excreted protein of the bacterium. This protein is hypothesized to be required for the association of Wolbachia with the nematode. Interestingly, bioinformatics tell us that Wbm0076 belongs to the WAS family of proteins, which are involved in remodeling the actin cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells. Using the yeast platform as a simple eukaryotic cell, my project involves studying the hypothesized role of the Wolbachia effector protein Wbm0076 in eukaryotic actin rearrangements.
To help drive my discoveries regarding Wbm0076 activity in host cells, I’ll be using a variety of laboratory techniques including yeast DNA transformations, molecular biology, fluorescence microscopy, Western blotting, PCR, and gel electrophoresis. These studies hope to identify key ways that this fascinating endosymbiotic bacterium can survive within a pathogenic nematode.
My name is Michael Mills and I am a PREP@UGA scholar.