Katherine Andre

One of the most unique things about haloarchaea is that they are highly polyploid; their tiny cells are packed with over 30 chromosomal copies. The central question I want to begin to answer with my work is how this cell organizes and homogenizes its presumably packed cytoplasm. I am relying on techniques like single-particle tracking rheology to characterize the viscoelastic properties of the haloarchaeal cytoplasm, relative to microbes across different domains of life. After establishing this toolkit, I aim to study how cytoplasmic viscoelasticity may change under different conditions and what biology may be mediating this change.
I earned a bachelor's degree from Colby College in 2022, where I was first introduced to the unique biology of Archaea in Dr. Ron Peck’s lab, and where I learned that I loved research. Now as a doctoral candidate in the Bisson lab at Brandeis, I love being able to use advanced microscopy and biophysics to answer truly fundamental biological questions.