After graduating from high school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Trung came to the US to pursue his Bachelor of Science in Genetics and Biochemistry at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. His undergraduate research at a biophysics lab was centralized upon the structural features in solution of a mutant version of Protein Kinase A – a primary driver of a rare childhood liver cancer. Trung is now a second-year PhD candidate in Dr. Erin Goley’s lab where he studies heterogeneity in growth physiology, cell biology and adaptation of the intracellular human pathogen Rickettsia parkeri (Rp), a causative agent of tick-borne Spotted Fever disease. His thesis work focuses on detecting subpopulations of Rp that display distinct replication rates, cell cycle distribution and physiological patterns as the pathogens adapt to different host environments. Because many bactericidal (bacteria-killing) antibiotics only target actively growing cells, heterogeneity can potentially give rise to dormant and slow-growing subpopulations that display antibiotic tolerance and persistence – one major hurdle in combating infectious diseases.
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