Each year, students can apply to be a part of the Nebraska Summer Research Program to gain hands-on experience in the labs at UNL.
Our Proteomics and Metabolomics Core and our Bioinformatics Core Research Facility have been collaborating with Dr. Rojas on a grant, and got the opportunity to each have an intern this past summer.
Logan, a Union University senior undergraduate, worked with the Bioinformatics Core. He helped with comparative genomics to uncover gene regions, and ultimately metabolites, in the P. protegens strains that fight B. glumae, a major rice pathogen
Logan received high honors, receiving both First-Place Beneficial Bacteria Poster Presentation and First-Place Overall Post-Presentation at the 2025 Nebraska Summer Research Symposium!
Sonya, a freshman at Chadron State College interned with our Proteomics and Metabolomics Team. She helped identify metabolites in the Pseudomonas protegens secretome responsible for antagonist activity against B. glumae causing major damage in rice production worldwide
Dr. Clemencia Rojas is a part of the plant pathology department at UNL and this summer her grant project focused on: Dissecting the antagonistic interaction between Pseudomonas protegens PBL3 and Burkholderia glumae towards development of biopesticides to control Bacterial Panicle Blight of rice.
We loved having the interns here to dive into hands-on research and make meaningful contributions. They ended the summer presenting posters at the Nebraska Summer Research Program Symposium!
Follow the links to learn more about the REU programs:
UNL Summer Research program: https://summerprogram.unl.edu/
Beneficial Bacteria Group: https://summerprogram.unl.edu/programs/beneficial-bacteria/
More details at: https://summerprogram.unl.edu/