During my one-week stay in Madison I met and talked to very intriguing and diverse scientists such as Frederico Rey (Department of Bacteriology), Ophelia Venturelli (Departments of Biochemistry, Bacteriology and Chemical and Biological Engineering), Jo Handelsman (Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at UW-Madison), David Lynn (Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering) and Cameron R. Currie.
Cameron develops amazing work looking at the intersections happening between microbial communities on insects, with a particular focus on ant-fungi symbioses.
Cameron took time for me and introduced me to lots of live ants, including ones with visible bacterial symbionts living on their bodies.
David Lynn and some of his students were so kind to set up some demonstrations for me, one of which was the electro-spinning process for coating surfaces with polymer nano-fibers.
Amazing how micro-societies thrive upon/within one another (the ants and the symbionts) and we get to observe that through our lense as larger beings. The bio-diversity possess such beauty.
Hi there! Such a wonderful article, thanks!