Maine INBRE supports the interrelated research projects of between six to nine INBRE faculty each year, enabling these more junior scientists to seek independent funding during the grant period. The INBRE program also supports pilot research projects for teaching-focused faculty and their students. Each project applies the strategies of comparative functional genomics—where scientists study the role and function of genes in a variety of different organisms—to biomedical issues in physiology, toxicology, and molecular and cellular developmental biology. Current project leaders are listed below.

Maine INBRE also participates in the NorthEast Cyberinfrastructure Consortium, which is a regional effort to facilitate cyber-enabled collaborative research among the Northeast Regional IDeA States: Delaware, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The NEBC has worked collaboratively to characterize the genome of the little skate, Leucoraja erinacea, in the Skate Genome Project.
Current Investigator Research
Investigator: Romain Madelaine, Ph.D., MDI Biological Laboratory
Project Summary
Contrary to humans, some animals have the powerful capacity to fully regenerate damaged tissue and organs, including the nervous system. Our research focuses on...
Investigator: Suegene Noh, Ph.D., Colby College
Project Summary
Our goal is to better understand how and why fitness outcomes differ among hosts when they encounter the same microbial symbiont in social groups. The amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum...
Investigator: Jennifer Honeycutt, PhD, Bowdoin College
An individual’s early life environment plays a central role in shaping developmental trajectories, and therefore confers substantial influence on later-life physical and mental health outcomes. A...
Investigator: Colleen O'Loughlin, Ph.D., Bates College
Project Summary
The human body is covered in trillions of microbes that carry out important chemistry and biology that keeps us alive. Deep sequencing of these microbial roommates revealed...
Investigator: Lori Banks, PhD, Bates College
The Banks Lab studies biochemical features of viroporin proteins from pathogenic viruses like rotavirus, that disrupt membrane structures inside of our cells. Some of these viral proteins target ...
Investigator: Yee Mon Thu, PhD, Colby College
Genome instability describes a condition in which the accuracy of genetic information or structural integrity of the genome is compromised. Under such a condition, the DNA molecule may be chemically...
Current Teaching Faculty Research
Teaching Faculty: Michael Palopoli, PhD, Bowdoin College
Our lab studies natural variation in gene expression. In particular, we are examining the extent to which gene regulation varies within and among species of fruit flies by quantifying variation...
Teaching Faculty: Donelle (Doni) Schwalm, PhD, University of Maine at Farmington
The process of colonization and recolonization is central to species persistence, in particular during periods of intense environmental change. Myriad factors ...
Teaching Faculty: Con Sullivan, Ph.D., University of Maine at Augusta
Viral diseases are consistently among the most pervasive healthcare burdens in the world. A key feature of viral diseases like COVID-19 and influenza A that contributes their mortality ...
See Also