Pankaj Trivedi

Associate Professor

Microbiome Network and Agricultural Biology

Areas of expertise: Microbial Ecology, Aerobiome analysis, Modelling, Bioinformatics 

Trivedi is a Co-Lead for Theme 4 of BROADN. He is interested in applying multi-omics approach to identify the potential functional repertoire of the aerobiome microbes, and to predict how those functions are impacted by environmental disturbances. His lab will incorporate this knowledge into modelling approaches to understand and predict local and global aerobiome-environmental interactions, with the potential to develop mechanistic approaches to model airborne disease spread and to mitigate pathogen transmission.

The Trivedi laboratory is interested in exploring the significance of variation in microbiome composition within and between organisms and ecosystems, for example, humans, plants, and atmosphere and how this relates to host genotype, phenotype, and environmental health. We use a suite of molecular biology, multi-omics, bioinformatics, and modelling approaches to determine the principles governing the assembly, dynamics, stability, and vulnerability to disturbance of the microbiome.

Potential projects to apply to:

Projects would involve laboratory and computational (bioinformatics) investigations of microorganisms isolated from aerobiome samples. 

These isolates were viable even after exposure to atmospheric conditions that were dry, cold, and involved high levels of UV light exposure, yet little is known about the genomic and functional traits that allows these microbes to withstand severe stresses. In the project, the student will conduct a range of functional evaluations of 1-3 isolates in the laboratories of the two BROADN professors. Bioinformatics tools will be used to search for particular genes and to identify proteins from mass spectrometric data. This research will have field and laboratory research components as part of proposed collaborative studies within the BROADN program.