The Ecology of Predation at the Microscale

Edouard Jurkevitch studied Soil and Water Sciences for his first and second degree, and Microbiology for his third degree, all at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). He obtained his Ph.D. in Agricultural Microbiology in 1992 for a thesis on ecological and physiological roles of bacterial siderophores. He was a post-doctoral fellow for three years at CNRS in France, where he studied nodule formation in legumes. In 1995, he joined HUJI's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot. He has a deep interest in microbial ecology, reflected in his research topics: Predatory interactions between bacteria, from cell-cell interactions to population dynamics; The relationship between feeding strategies in flies and their gut symbionts, and; Soil microbial forensics, a cutting-edge application of microbial ecology.

Robert J. Mitchell followed his heart and traveled to South Korea, where in 2004 he received his PhD in Environmental Sciences at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) studying environmental toxicity sensing using bacterial bioreporters. After two post-doctoral fellows studying oral pathogens and fermentations/bioenergy production, first at Harvard University and then at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), respectively, he joined the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology where he has continued to pursue his career as a professor. His lab has meshed all of his previous experiences to delve deeper into the fields of applied microbiology and pathobiotechnlogy, with a heavy emphasis given towards understanding predatory bacteria.