High-throughput co-culture screening maps cross-feeding in synthetic yeast communities
I designed a lab-automation workflow to screen thousands of pairwise co-cultures across an auxotrophic yeast knockout library.
- Synthetic microbial communities
- Yeast genetics
- Metabolic cross-feeding
- Lab automation
- High-throughput screening
- R coding
I worked with automated colony pickers and liquid handlers to run arrayed growth experiments, including media transitions into minimal conditions and systematic pairing of strains to expose cross-feeding and other synergistic growth phenotypes. I paired the experimental pipeline with an R-based analysis workflow to call hits and summarize interaction patterns. This work formed the core of my master’s thesis and contributed to a first co-author paper in Nature Chemical Biology.
Summary of the workflow for discovering auxotroph pairs capable of syntrophic and synergistic growth:
