Date of Submission

Spring 2021

Academic Program

Biology

Project Advisor 1

Arseny Khakhalin

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The bacterial species, Proteus mirabilis, is a unique bacteria that differentiates into different cell types that are important in the cell’s virulence. This bacteria goes from vegetative cells that are able to divide into moving swarmers that are not able to carry out cell division and form groups referred to as rafts in order to move in an organized manner. The cyclical pattern of this bacteria in environments that are ideal for swarming results in the formation of many rings. The way this bacteria swarms can be unfortunate for people as it is one of the leading causes of catheter-associated urinary tract infections due to its persistence of swarming on many different surfaces.

In this project, I will model an agent-based simulation of P. mirabilis movement in order to see what aspects of the cell cycle are important to the formation of these rings and possibly how to disrupt them. With my model, I will look at age dynamics and density dependence of the cell cycle of P. mirabilis.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Download

This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.

Bard Off-campus Download

Bard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.

Share

COinS