All About Me

Stephanie Connon uses culture independent methods to determine the species of bacteria present in extreme environmental soils including the Mojave Desert and the Atacama Desert, Chile. She has extracted DNA from bulk soil samples and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries were successfully constructed and phylogenetically analyzed to determine the placement of these bacteria in the bacterial "tree of life." This has allowed the determination of the relatedness of the species found in the  Atacama Desert soils with bacterial 16S rDNA sequences from GenBank, which includes species found in various environments around the world.

Previously published results indicated that the soils of the Atacama are nearly sterile and their previous attempts to extract DNA had been unsuccessful. There are, to date, no peer reviewed published accounts in the literature of any DNA genes successfully extracted directly from the dry desert soils of the Atacama. She has been very successful at developing and implementing procedures and methods to isolate, clone and sequence virtually full length 16S rRNA gene sequence fragments from these soils.

She is also working with Don Obenhuber to analyze spore concentrates from Atacama soils that were acquired in his independent research efforts. She is extracting DNA from these spore concentrates to determine the identity of the microorganisms that are selected for using this spore concentration technique. This is also work in progress.

She has also been involved in microscopy cell counts on Greenland ice-core samples. She is currently attempting to extract DNA from these samples which also have very low cell numbers and thus low levels of DNA.

education

Ph.D. Microbiology, Oregon State University, 2003
Thesis: Culturing uncultured environmental microorganisms

B.S. Environmental Science, Washington State University, 1996

B.S. Biology (minor in Microbiology), Washington State University, 1996

publications

Detection and viability assessment of endospore-forming pathogens.  Ponce, A.; Connon, S.A.; Yung, P.T.  In Principles of Bacterial Detection: Biosensors, Recognition Receptors and Microsystems, Eds. Zourob, M.; Elwary, S.; Turner, A., Springer Science+Business Media, 2008.

Bacterial diversity in hyperarid Atacama Desert soils.  Connon, S.A.; Lester, E.D.; Shafaat, H.S.; Obenhuber, D.C.; Ponce, A.  Journal of Geophysical Research, 2007, 112(G4): Article No. G04S17. [PDF]

Quantification of viable endospores from a Greenland ice core.  Yung, P.T.; Shafaat, H.S.; Connon, S.A.; Ponce, A.  FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2007, 59, 300-306. [PDF]