Lab Members
Principal Investigator
Karen Ottemann, Ph.D. Karen grew up in Michigan and Illinois before landing in the San Francisco Bay area in 7th grade. She received her B.S. in Bacteriology from UC Davis, worked for almost a year at Cetus Corporation, and then carried out Ph.D. work on the Vibrio cholerae virulence gene regulator ToxR at Harvard University in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department with Prof. John Mekalanos. After finishing her Ph.D. in 1994, she moved to UC Berkeley Molecular Cell Biology Department to work on Salmonella chemoreceptors with Prof. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.. In 1999, she started her own lab at UC Santa Cruz focussed on colonization abilities and chemotaxis of Helicobacter pylori. She enjoys sharing science with her lab members, the collegial atmosphere and amazing research done by her colleagues, and exploring the many gorgeous campus hiking and biking trails.
Email: ottemann@ucsc.edu
Lab Members
Xiaolin
Xiaolin is a postdoc in the lab. He grew up in the beautiful Shandong Peninsula between the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea. He completed his Ph.D. work on Azorhizobium caulinodans chemotaxis in 2021 from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research. During his Ph.D., he and earned a China Scholarship Council award to work in the Ottemann Lab for part of his Ph.D. His postdoc focus is on H. pylori flagellar and chemotaxis signaling responses. When out of lab, he likes reading and hiking.
Nick
Nick is a senior researcher in the lab. He completed his Ph.D. in Australia, working on engineering thermophiles for enhanced bioethanol production. He then joined UCSC working on biofilm formation in V. cholerae and later investigating the link of zooplankton microbiota in host survival. His current projects involved developing tools for screening of regulators in H. pylori that regulate motility, chemotaxis and virulence. Nick likes to garden and enjoys a good book, a good movie, and a good hike.
Yasmine
Yazzy is in the METX PhD program. She was born in Montreal but grew up in Orange County. She graduated in 2019 from UC Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Biology. She joined the Ottemann lab first as a postbac, then as a MS student in 2020, and now as a Ph.D. student in the Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology Dept. She is currently studying ribosomal silencing and chronic colonization in H. pylori. When she has free time she enjoys drawing, reading at the beach, and running.
Angela
Angela is in the MCDB PhD program. She was born in Arkansas, but she grew up in Oakland, California. She completed her BA at UC Berkeley in MCB, and then from 2018-2021, she completed her MS at SFSU where she studied cell communication via the Wnt signaling pathway at the Burrus lab. Angela joined the Ottemann Lab in Spring 2022, where she will study H. pylori transcriptional responses. During her leisure time, she participates in social justice work, watches Sci-fi movies, cooks low-fat gourmet dishes, and loves reading classical literature.
Sydney
Syd is in the METX PhD program. Syd joined the lab in Spring of 2022, after completing BS work at University of San Diego. Syd's project relates to a molecule sensed by the TlpC chemoreceptor.
Nataly Undergraduate/4+1 MS student
Nataly grew up in the Bay Area. She is completing her B.S. in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology while dually enrolled in a M.S. program for Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology at UCSC. Nataly joined the Ottemann lab in Summer of 2023, where she studies H. pylori’s transcriptional response to lactate. During her free time, she likes hiking and spending time with her family.
Alexander Solov. Undergraduate/4+1 MS student
Alex was born in Santa Cruz and grew up in San Jose. He joined the Ottemann lab in 2023, and is working on his MS METX degree at UCSC. His research project is focused on early stages of biofilm formation by H pylori.
Eric Undergraduate
Eric was born in Goleta, Santa Barbara but grew up in Arcadia, California. He is working towards completing a B.S. in Microbiology at UCSC. In May 2022 he joined the Ottemann Lab as a Laboratory Assistant and then transition to research related to complement and lactate. In his free time he likes to read, play basketball, and hike the trails around campus.