Nichole Broderick

About

Nichole Broderick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University. She joined Johns Hopkins in July 2020, after serving as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and the Institute for Systems Genomics at the University of Connecticut. Prior to that, from 2013 to 2015, she was an Associate Research Scientist in the Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology Department at Yale University. Nichole earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she worked with Ken Raffa in Entomology and Jo Handelsman in Microbiology. She completed her postdoctoral research in the lab of Bruno Lemaitre at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research focuses on the characterization of the gut microbiota of insect hosts and investigates how these microbial communities impact host physiology and susceptibility to disease. This work aims to understand the complex interactions between insect hosts and their gut microbes, shedding light on the role of microbiota in health and disease susceptibility in insect models.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Cell biology
• Data science
• Engineering
• Biotechnology

Selected publications

• Glyphosate inhibits melanization and increases susceptibility to infection in insects

  PLoS Biology · 2021 · 78 citations

  Melanin, a black-brown pigment found throughout all kingdoms of life, has diverse biological functions including UV protection, thermoregulation, oxidant scavenging, arthropod immunity, and microbial virulence. Given melanin's broad roles in the biosphere, particularly in insect immune defenses, it is important to understand how exposure to ubiquitous environmental contaminants affects melanization. Glyphosate-the most widely used herbicide globally-inhibits melanin production, which could have…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tiny Earth: A Big Idea for STEM Education and Antibiotic Discovery

  mBio · 2021 · 61 citations

  The world faces two seemingly unrelated challenges-a shortfall in the STEM workforce and increasing antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens. We address these two challenges with Tiny Earth, an undergraduate research course that excites students about science and creates a pipeline for antibiotic discovery.

  DOI

• Cuticular profiling of insecticide resistant Aedes aegypti

  Scientific Reports · 2023-06-22 · 55 citations

  articleOpen access

  Insecticides have made great strides in reducing the global burden of vector-borne disease. Nonetheless, serious public health concerns remain because insecticide-resistant vector populations continue to spread globally. To circumvent insecticide resistance, it is essential to understand all contributing mechanisms. Contact-based insecticides are absorbed through the insect cuticle, which is comprised mainly of chitin polysaccharides, cuticular proteins, hydrocarbons, and phenolic biopolymers sc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Microbiome-derived acidity protects against microbial invasion in Drosophila

  Cell Reports · 2024-04-01 · 28 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Microbial invasions underlie host-microbe interactions resulting in pathogenesis and probiotic colonization. In this study, we explore the effects of the microbiome on microbial invasion in Drosophila melanogaster. We demonstrate that gut microbes Lactiplantibacillus plantarum and Acetobacter tropicalis improve survival and lead to a reduction in microbial burden during infection. Using a microbial interaction assay, we report that L. plantarum inhibits the growth of invasive bacteria, while A.…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Preliminary evidence for chaotic signatures in host-microbe interactions

  mSystems · 2024-01-10 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  , respectively. We found suggestions of chaotic signatures in both systems but caution that our results are preliminary and highlight the need for more fine-grained and larger data sets in determining dynamical characteristics. If validated, chaos in host-microbe interactions would have important implications for the occurrence and outcome of infectious diseases, the reproducibility of experiments in the field of microbial pathogenesis, and the prediction of microbial threats.IMPORTANCEIs microb…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Non-genetic inheritance: mechanisms of microbiome-mediated transgenerational change

  NIH · $1.9M · 2020–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Jo Handelsman

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  55 shared

• Gabriel L. Lozano

  Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

  40 shared

• Danielle Lesperance

  Johns Hopkins University

  27 shared

• Bruno Lemaître

  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  17 shared

• Eric V. Stabb

  University of Illinois Chicago

  14 shared

• Alexander J. Barron

  University of Connecticut

  14 shared

• Amanda Hurley

  Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

  12 shared

• Luis Balderrama

  Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

  12 shared

Labs

• Broderick LaboratoryPI

  Focus on characterization of the gut microbiota of insect hosts and study of their impacts on host physiology and susceptibility to disease.

Education

• PhD, Entomology and Microbiology

  University of Wisconsin Madison

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Michael Schatzh-111
• Yumi Kimh-64
• Erik Andersenh-46