First
of all, I’ll apologize since this is my third blog post of the week, but I
COULD NOT not blog about this. You all should go to this
article on npr and read the story. It’s about the research being done by
our very own Dr. Bucheli and Dr. Lynne along with a team of scientists from
Colorado and Baylor College of Medicine. This particular story was
written/recorded in April before I joined the project, but I can tell you all
that it’s an amazing project to be a part of.
These
scientists are working to find out whether the microbiome of decomposition can
be used to estimate time of death of an individual. This work has been done
with mice in a lab setting, but not with human cadavers. With this sort of
information we may be able to one day pinpoint exactly how long a body has been
somewhere, if a body was once in a specific location, or where a suspect was
(and who they are) simply based on the bacteria which live on our body.
I’m
hoping that once I’m in the Biological Sciences Graduate Program here (crossing my
fingers!), my thesis will hopefully revolve around some aspect of this research. My
particular interest is in the changes found in soil microbiology, but every
part of this research is fascinating to me! Maybe some of you will find it just as interesting as I do.
I just read this article last night!! I think it is awesome that we (SHSU) are doing research like this! So are you a part of this research? Are they working with any professors in the Forensics department?
ReplyDeleteI am a part of this project. I wasn't at the time of this interview, but about two weeks later I joined and am hoping this will be somewhat part of my thesis work once I'm in the grad program for Bio. As far as I know, the forensics department isn't involved, but I'm not really sure about the details. I'll know more later into the semester and into the spring as I'm becoming more involved as a team leader for the sampling team. Another story related to this came out, so that will be my next post!
DeleteThat is awesome!! Keep us updated! I would love to hear more about the project as it progresses.
DeleteI agree, this is great news! My first semester here I had noted a poster with similar studies being done by Dr. Bucheli and Dr. Lynn. I thought it was pretty interesting to relate time of death to microbiome of decomposition
ReplyDeleteOh wow! I remember Dr. Lynne always saying he wanted to incorporate microbiology and forensics together, and look at him doing what he said he wanted to do! I'm excited to see where this goes. It will definitely be good publicity for the school if the research comes to a good conclusion.
ReplyDeleteLauren: How about a blog post about your role in the research project? Like a mini-presentation?
ReplyDeleteSounds good. That will be this week's blog!
Delete