vaginal microbiome Research

I completed my PhD in the in the Ravel lab at the University of Maryland / Institute for Genome Science (IGS) in Baltimore, MD, USA. where I identified host-microbial interactions in the human vaginal microbiome. I applied machine learning algorithms to prioritize miRNAs for further experimentation and identified a key host response in protection against a Chlamydia trachomatis infection:

Edwards VL, Smith SB, et al. 2019. The cervicovaginal microbiota host interaction modulates Chlamydia trachomatis infection. mBio 10:e01548-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01548-19.

My work was also partially utilized in:

Delgado-Diaz, D.J, … Smith SB, et al. 2022. Lactic acid from vaginal microbiota enhances cervicovaginal epithelial barrier integrity by promoting tight junction protein expression. Microbiome. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-022-01337-5.

Jacques and I also published a review article in the Journal of Physiology: 

Smith, S. B. and Ravel, J. (2017), The vaginal microbiota, host defence and reproductive physiology. J Physiol, 595: 451–463. doi:10.1113/JP271694

pan Respiratory Viral & bacterial projects

Along with collaborators at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals and Drexel University, I computationally discovered common host responses across seven and two different respiratory viral and bacterial pathogens, respectively:

Smith SB, Dampier W, Tozeren A, Brown JR, Magid-Slav M (2012) Identification of Common Biological Pathways and Drug Targets Across Multiple Respiratory Viruses Based on Human Host Gene Expression Analysis  PLoS ONE 7(3): e33174. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033174

Smith SB, Magid-Slav M, Brown JR (2013) Host Response to Respiratory Bacterial Pathogens as Identified by Integrated Analysis of Human Gene Expression Data. PLoS ONE 8(9): e75607. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075607

A Showcase of other projects

I have a myriad of other projects in which I designed experiments and applied computational methods:

  • Designed & Implemented MySQL databases to manage major projects.

  • Identifyed Novel miRNA in Arabidopsis Thaliana

  • Safety Assessment Study at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

  • Design & Implementation of a Brain-Computer Interface

  • Image Recognition using a Neural Network

  • Research Development Study at Lyophilization Technology, Incorporated