Our research integrates evolutionary biology and microbiology, using bacteria and phage as study systems to address fundamental questions in both fields.
We study microbial evolution, a process that is a useful model for understanding natural evolution and underlies the applied biology of pathogenesis, environmental microbiology, and industrial fermentation.
Lab News:
[March 6, 2024] Chloé will present her undergraduate work on mucoidy to state lawmakers at the annual Wisconsin Research in the Rotunda event!
[January 2024] Welcome to new graduate student Nery Zamudio Bautista!
[August 2023] Welcome to new Ph.D. student Shokry Mahmoud!
[June 5, 2023] We have two new phage genome announcements just published in Microbiology Resource Announcements. These represent the world-traveling, phage-collecting skills of collaborator Ben Chan and a team of dedicated undergrad bioinformaticians::
Schwarz J.C., An W., Theroux A., Vargas L., Chan B.K., Turner P.E., and Burmeister A. R.# 2023. Complete genome assembly and annotation of Escherichia coli bacteriophage 55 from Rivière la Quint in Gonaïves, Haiti. Microbiology Resource Announcements e00107-23.
Schwarz J.C., Chan B.K., Turner P.E., and Burmeister A. R.# 2023. Complete genome assembly and annotation of Escherichia coli bacteriophage 107. Microbiology Resource Announcements. e00106-23.
[May 16, 2023] First results from the Burmeister lab at UWM now published! This work characterizes our model phage U136B through experimental evolution, bridging work done by my great team from postdoc to UWM:
Burmeister A.R.#, Tzintzun-Tapia E., Roush C., Mangal I., Barahman R., Bjornson R.D., and Turner P.E. 2023. Experimental evolution of the TolC-receptor phage U136B functionally identifies a tail fiber protein involved in adsorption through strong parallel adaptation. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Doi/10.1128/aem.00079-23.
[May 12, 2023] Congratulations again to lab member Chloé Skinner! Best Undergraduate Poster Award in Microbiology at the UW Milwaukee BioScience Symposium.
[May 5, 2023] Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Chloé Skinner, winner of the fantastic 2023-2024 Senior Excellence in Research Award!
[Apr. 7th, 2023] Undergraduate Chloé Skinner presents her research on phage resistance at the UW Milwaukee BioScience Symposium.
[March 29th, 2023] The lab received our first peer-reviewed grant to study phage resistance and antibiotic resistance! Thank you to the UWM Discovery and Innovation Grant Program!
[Sept 2022] Congratulations to Harleen Tewatia and Chloé Skinner, recipients of UWM Undergraduate Research SURF Awards and new Burmeister lab researchers!
[August 2022] The new lab is open at UW Milwaukee!
[June 2022] Presenting work on phage experimental evolution at the American Society for Microbiology Microbe conference in Washington, DC.
[May 2022] Organizing and running two Microbial Evolution workshops at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany! Info here.
[Jan. 14, 2021] Excited to announce I’m joining the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Wisconsin Milwaukeeas an Assistant Professor this August! So happy to move back home to SE Wisconsin and set up lab in Milwaukee to study how phage resistance impacts antibiotic resistance and other evolutionary curiosities. Looking for great undergraduate, postbac, graduate, and postdoc researchers!
[Sept. 22, 2021] Submitted! New phage genome on GenBank and manuscript submitted with my 12 summer undergraduate researchers.
[Sept. 2021] Celebrating my student, Carli Roush, on her first first-author research manuscript: Roush C., Chan B, Turner PE, and Burmeister AR#. Complete genome sequence of Escherichia bacteriophage 132. Accepted to Microbiology Resource Announcements.
[June 2021] Award the American Society for Microbiology Intralytix Best Poster Abstract Award! See my talk and poster at the World Microbe Forum June 23-26 on pleiotropy interactions between phage resistance and antibiotic resistance.
[May 2021] New Lambda paper! "Sustained coevolution of phage Lambda and Escherichia coli involves inner as well as outer membrane defenses and counter-defenses" published in Microbiology as the first article in their new Microbial Evolution Section.
Open access at https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001063.
[Feb. 23, 2021] Celebrating acceptance of my first fully assembled, annotated phage genome to GenBank! Bacteriophage U136B, complete genome, available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MW598258.
[Feb. 15, 2021] Welcoming Yale undergrads Eddy Tzintzun-Tapia and Ivan Mangal as mentees in the lab. First stop: How to Make LB. Next stop: experiments on phage genome evolution.
[Jan. 30, 2021] Now Open-Access! Our article on thinking ecologically and evolutionarily in medicine, from viruses to bacteria to protozoans to cancer. Burmeister et al. BioEssays 202000272.
[Oct 23, 2020] My undergrad mentee Carli Roush wins a 'best poster award' at the Yale Undergraduate Research Symposium!
[Oct. 9, 2020] Carli receives the prestigious Yale STARS II Fellowship for funding her Junior and Senior years of research!