By David Yagudayev, Science and Technology Editor
Yehuda Mazin (YC ‘25) is a senior at Yeshiva College (YC) majoring in biology. He attended Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC) for high school and Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush) for yeshiva. This past summer, he participated in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) in Dr. Sridhar Mani’s lab.
What do you study in Dr. Mani’s lab?
We study the effects of fecal bacterial swarming behavior in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Previous work has indicated that bacteria present in the guts of people with IBD tend to exhibit a type of swarming behavior, where bacteria rapidly form a biofilm and spread over the entire plate. How did you get involved in this research?
I was a participant in the AECOM SURP, where I spent six weeks over the summer living on the Einstein campus. I was assigned to Dr. Mani’s lab. I enjoyed my work and am continuing to use it as the basis for my honors thesis.
What did you hope to gain from this research experience?
I hoped to gain more experience in the research process. I did not know exactly what type of lab I would be assigned to within the SURP, but I wanted to be a part of a lab where I could play a hands-on role and have a direct impact on the research, instead of just sitting at a desk crunching numbers.
What role do you play in this lab?
My role within the lab was twofold. One part of my role was to process existing fecal samples into usable lab samples and perform swarming assays to document further swarming behaviors. From samples which swarmed, my job was to create bacterial strain isolates, which could then be ID’d by the clinical pathology lab at Montefiore using a technique called MALDI-TOF as a single bacterial species, and the isolates could be prepared for genetic sequencing.
The second aspect of my role was to develop methods of optimizing the swarming assay protocol in order to shorten the time needed to swarm, making the research process more efficient and allowing for a swarming assay to be used as a clinical test. To this end I developed a new bacterial growth medium which enabled the strains of bacteria we were working with to grow more quickly and to swarm faster. I also altered the swarming assay by introducing irregularities into the surface of the agar, creating pockets for the bacteria to cluster and grow into a critical density, promoting an earlier swarming point. Through these methods, we were able to reduce swarming time from 24-48 hours to just 5.25 hours under certain conditions, with the potential to grow shorter with more experimentation.
Is there anything you encountered that was especially difficult during the research?
Due to the fact that the field of research is so cutting-edge, there was a limited amount of material out there that had not originated within Dr. Mani’s lab. I ended up relying on very old papers from the food-science and exobiology fields for developing the new growth medium recipe, as they were the most thorough on the topic.
What was the most interesting part about your research?
I definitely enjoyed the direct application of the scientific method the most in my research. I was given virtual autonomy in the optimization experiments, so I was to directly hypothesize, develop an experiment and test my hypothesis, as opposed to having my research methods dictated to me. I truly got to feel like I was developing new knowledge.
Lastly, do you have any advice for students interested in lab positions?
Apply, apply, apply. There are numerous summer programs out there which are looking for undergraduates to assign to a variety of labs. The only thing holding you back from a chance is actually applying.
Photo Caption: Yehuda Mazin
Photo Credit: Yehuda Mazin