Boahemaa Adu-Oppong

Boahemaa Adu-Oppong

Director of Computational Biology & Data Science

Posts by Collection

cv

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outreach

Community Advisory Board

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Bi-annual update on YSP programs and evaluation with advisory board feedback

Data - Talking Tech Interview Prep

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Career Service workshop where I talk about how to prepare for a data analysis/scientist role. This workshop achieved a 95% satisfaction rating of students rating a 4 or 5.

outreach-exp

KIPP Academy (Houston)

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  • Chaperoned a trip of sixth graders to Utah.
  • Organized visits to Rice University.

KIPP Aspire (San Antonio)

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  • Organized visit to Rice University.
  • Gave a personalized tour of Rice University.

KIPP Voyage (Houston)

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  • Selected to participate on a career panel, to talk about my college experience.
  • Selected to be a role model for one of the classrooms.

KIPP Inspire (Saint Louis)

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  • 2015 - Coached four students in each Science Olympiad tournament (Fossils and Entomology).
  • 2014 - Coached three students for each of the Science Olympiad tournament (Disease Detectives).
  • 2013 - Coached two students in each Science Olympiad tournament (Disease Detectives and Entomology).</ul>

Continuing Mentorship Program at Soldan High School

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  • Founding class of this flagship program. This program pairs graduate students with high school students who are interested in science as a career for four years.
  • Applied for funding through the Alumni Association
  • Organized dinners and meetings at the school.
  • Organized orientation and training events for new mentors
  • Helped with the expansion from Soldan to another St. Louis Public High School (Collegiate School of Science and Biosciences)

East St. Louis High School

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  • Presented my path to attaining a PhD to high school 15 female African American students interested in health care

Young Scientist Program (YSP)

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  • YSP is a non-profit organization focused on promoting STEM education and encouraging the pursuit of careers in STEM fields by traditionally underrepresented minorities.
  • Organized meetings and events for high school and middle school students in the Saint Louis area.
  • 2017 – Co-Consultant of the volunteer program. I am responsible for creating new and continuing existing connections between volunteers and the St. Louis community.
  • 2016 – Co-Director
    • Oversaw 39 Teaching Team Events and reached 3,429 students
    • Oversaw 21 Field Trips to Wash U with 11 schools and reached 854 students
  • 2015 - Director
  • 2014 - Assistant Director
    • Oversaw events which engaged with 2,300 students
  • 2012 – Present – Ecology and Evolution Teaching Team Member

The Show Me Costa Rica Project

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  • This project was created by a teacher in a St. Louis public school who saw the need for students in the inner city to travel internationally. Many students are the first in their families to travel abroad or have a passport.
  • 2013 – Present - Part of leadership board and helped with fundraisers, created promotional materials, and developed biology modules for the students.
  • 2016 & 2017 - Traveled with the students to Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Plant Biotech Data Fluency Mentorship Program

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  • Implemented a Biotech wide Data Fluency Mentoring Program where mentees executed their business goal by attaining a new data fluency skill taught by the mentor.
  • Demonstrated ability to delegate tasks among a team of 8 individuals.

posters-presentations

publications

Structured growth and genetic drift raise relatedness in the social amoeba D. discoideum

Published in Biology Letters, 2012

One condition for the evolution of altruism is genetic relatedness between altruist and beneficiary, often achieved through active kin recognition. Here, we investigate the power of a passive process resulting from genetic drift during population growth in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

Recommended citation: Neil Buttery, Chandra N. Jack, Boahemaa Adu-Oppong, Kate Snyder, Chris Thompson, David C. Queller, Joan E. Strassmann(2012). "Structured growth and genetic drift raise relatedness in the social amoeba D. discoideum. " Biology Letters 8(5). http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2012_Structured_Growth_and_genetic_drift.pdf

Collection and cultivation of Dictyostelids from the wild.

Published in Dictyostelium discoideum Protocols, 2013

Dictyostelium discoideum is a commonly used model organism for the study of biological processes such as chemotaxis, cell communication, and development. While these studies primarily focus on a single clone, recent work has revealed a host of questions that can only be answered from studies of multiple genetically distinct clones.

Recommended citation: Tracy E. Douglas, Debra A. Brock, Boahemaa Adu-Oppong, David C. Queller, Joan E. Strassmann(2013). "Collection and cultivation of Dictyostelids from the wild." Dictyostelium discoideum Protocols. http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2013_Collection_Cultivation_of_Dictyostelids_from_the_Wild.pdf

Is there specificity in a defensive mutualism against soil versus lab nematodes, Dictyostelium discoideum farmers and their bacteria?

Published in Evolutionary Ecology Research, 2015

Do the defensive bacteria that farmers carry also protect farmers from nematodes? Is this protection specific to nematodes that reside with D. discoideum?

Recommended citation: Boahemaa Adu-Oppong, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller (2015). "Is there specificity in a defensive mutualism against soil versus lab nematodes, Dictyostelium discoideum farmers and their bacteria?." Evolutionary Ecology Research. 16. http://abenaa07.github.io/files/Is-there-specificity-in-a-defensive-mutualism-against-soil-versus.pdf

Migration in the social stage of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae impacts competition

Published in Peer J, 2015

Interaction conditions can change the balance of cooperation and conflict in multicellular groups. After aggregating together, cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum may migrate as a group (known as a slug) to a new location. We consider this migration stage as an arena for social competition and conflict because the cells in the slug may not be from a genetically homogeneous population.

Recommended citation: Chandra N. Jack, Neil J. Buttery, Boahemaa Adu-Oppong, Michael Powers, Joan E. Strassmann and David C. Queller (2015). "Migration in the social stage of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae impacts competition." Peer J. 1(2). http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2015_Migration_in_the_social_stage_of_dicty.pdf

Mining the microbiome using genomic technologies for antibiotic resistance and discovery.

Published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , 2016

Microbial communities contain diverse bacteria that play important roles in every environment. Advances in sequencing and computational methodologies over the past decades have illuminated the phylogenetic and functional diversity of microbial communities from diverse habitats.

Recommended citation: B Adu‐Oppong, AJ Gasparrini, G Dantas. (2017). "Genomic and functional techniques to mine the microbiome for novel antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance genes." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1388. http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2016_Adu-Oppong_Gasparrini_GenomicFunctionalMiningAbxResProd_REVIEW_AnnalsNYAS.pdf

Holobiont Diversity in a Reef-Building Coral over Its Entire Depth Range in the Mesophotic Zone

Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, 2018

Mesophotic reef-building coral communities (~30–120 m depth) remain largely unexplored, despite representing roughly three-quarters of the overall depth range at which tropical coral reef ecosystems occur. Although many coral species are restricted to shallow depths, several species occur across large depth ranges, including lower mesophotic depths. Yet, it remains unclear how such species can persist under extreme low-light conditions and how the different symbiotic partners associated with these corals contribute to facilitate such broad depth ranges.

Recommended citation: Gonzalez-Zapata FL, Bongaerts P, Ramírez-Portilla C, Adu-Oppong B, Walljasper G, Reyes A and Sanchez JA (2018) Holobiont Diversity in a Reef-Building Coral over Its Entire Depth Range in the Mesophotic Zone. Frontiers in Marine Science http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2018_holobiont_diverse_in_a_reef_building_coral.pdf

Local confinement of disease-related microbiome facilitates recovery of gorgonian sea fans from necrotic-patch disease.

Published in Scientific Reports, 2018

Microbiome disruptions triggering disease outbreaks are increasingly threatening corals worldwide. In the Tropical Eastern Pacific, a necrotic-patch disease affecting gorgonian corals (sea fans, Pacifigorgia spp.) has been observed in recent years. However, the composition of the microbiome and its disease-related disruptions remain unknown in these gorgonian corals.

Recommended citation: Quintanilla E, Ramírez-Portilla C, Adu-Oppong B, et al. (2018) "Local confinement of disease-related microbiome facilitates recovery of gorgonian sea fans from necrotic-patch disease." Scientific Reports http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2018_Local_confinement_gorgonian_sea_farms.pdf

Bogotá River anthropogenic contamination alters microbial communities and promotes spread of antibiotic resistance genes

Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019

The increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria has raised global concern regarding the future effectiveness of antibiotics. Human activities that influence microbial communities and environmental resistomes can generate additional risks to human health. In this work, we characterized aquatic microbial communities and their resistomes in samples collected at three sites along the Bogotá River and from wastewaters at three city hospitals, and investigated community profiles and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) as a function of anthropogenic contamination.

Recommended citation: Posada-Perlaza, C.E., Ramírez-Rojas, A., Porras, P., Adu-Oppong, B et al. (2019) Bogotá River anthropogenic contamination alters microbial communities and promotes spread of antibiotic resistance genes. Scientific Reports http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2019_bogota_river_anthropogenic_contamination.pdf

Prairie plants harbor distinct and beneficial root-endophytic bacterial communities

Published in PLOS ONE, 2020

Plant-soil feedback studies attempt to understand the interplay between composition of plant and soil microbial communities. A growing body of literature suggests that plant species can coexist when they interact with a subset of the soil microbial community that impacts plant performance. Most studies focus on the microbial community in the soil rhizosphere; therefore, the degree to which the bacterial community within plant roots (root-endophytic compartment) influences plant-microbe interactions remains relatively unknown. To determine if there is an interaction between conspecific vs heterospecific soil microbes and plant performance, we sequenced root-endophytic bacterial communities of five tallgrass-prairie plant species, each reciprocally grown with soil microbes from each hosts’ soil rhizosphere. We found evidence of plant-soil feedbacks for some pairs of plant hosts; however, the strength and direction of feedbacks varied substantially across plant species pairs–from positive to negative feedbacks. Additionally, each plant species harbored a unique subset of root-endophytic bacteria. Conspecifics that hosted similar bacterial communities were more similar in biomass than individuals that hosted different bacterial communities, suggesting an important functional link between root-endophytic bacterial community composition and plant fitness. Our findings suggest a connection between an understudied component of the root-endophytic microbiome and plant performance, which may have important implications in understanding plant community composition and coexistence.

Recommended citation: Adu-Oppong B, Mangan SA, Stein C, Catano CP, Myers JA, et al. (2020) Prairie plants harbor distinct and beneficial root-endophytic bacterial communities. http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2020_AduOppong_Prairie_plants_harbor_distinct_and_beneficial_bacterial_communities.pdf

The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies

Published in Science Advances, 2020

In the honey bee, genetically related colony members innately develop colony-specific cuticular hydrocarbon profiles, which serve as pheromonal nestmate recognition cues. Yet, despite high intracolony relatedness, the innate development of colony-specific chemical signatures by individual colony members is largely determined by the colony environment, rather than solely relying on genetic variants shared by nestmates. Therefore, it is puzzling how a nongenic factor could drive the innate development of a quantitative trait that is shared by members of the same colony. Here, we provide one solution to this conundrum by showing that nestmate recognition cues in honey bees are defined, at least in part, by shared characteristics of the gut microbiome across individual colony members. These results illustrate the importance of host-microbiome interactions as a source of variation in animal behavioral traits.

Recommended citation: Vernier, Cassondra L., Chin, Iris M., Adu-Oppong, Boahemaa, et al.(2020) The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies. http://abenaa07.github.io/files/2020_Vernier_The_Gut_Microbiome_Defines_Social_Group.pdf

teaching

Teaching experience 1

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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lab

  • Train undergraduates how to use R.
  • Arranged for guest speakers to teach students more about Dictyostelium discoideum.

Teaching experience 2

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Behavioral Ecology

  • Assisted professor with grading papers and facilitating class discussions.
  • Lead a weekly discussion section 6.44/7 overall rating
  • 6.33/7 of overall rating of teaching effectiveness

Teaching experience 3

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Experimental Ecology

  • Assisted professor with grading papers and facilitating class discussions.
  • Assisted professor in designing short experiments
  • Assisted students in conducting a short experiment