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Meet Mentewab Ayalew, Ph.D.

Mentewab Ayalew, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Biology
Biology, Faculty, LINCS Program

Contact Info
404-270-6200
Science Center 248

Tag(s): LINCS Program, faculty, biology

Biography

Faculty Member Since 2008

Mentewab Ayalew, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of Biology at Spelman College.

Recent Awards

  • NSF - RUI: Mechanism of antibiotic resistance conferred by plant ABC proteins (2011-2015).
  • Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, Faculty Development Program (2011-2013).
  • Faculty Sabbatical Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology/HHMI (2011).

Education

  • Ph.D., Institut National Polytechnique, Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Agronomie de Toulouse (INP-ENSAT)
  • M.A., INP-ENSAT
  • Diplome d'Ingenieur Agronome, INP-ENSAT

Courses Taught

  • Bio115: Organismal Form and Function
  • Bio211: Plant Biology with Lab
  • Bio475: Methods in Molecular Biology
  • Bio487: Research in Plant Biology
  • Bio487: Research in Molecular Biology
  • FYE 101-102: First Year Experience

Research Interests

My area of interest is in understanding the biological basis of plants’ adaptation to various stresses, especially exposure to antibiotics produced by soil bacteria. I use a combination of large-scales studies and investigations focused on the antibiotic resistance gene Atwbc19 to understand the mechanisms involved. In so doing, I am particularly like to engage undergraduate students in research and share the excitement of our findings.

Select Publications

  • Mentewab A., Nichols I., Hardy R., Davis K., Carlington B., Heckard D. 2014. Analysis of conserved motifs in the plant-specific group of ABC transporters orthologous with AtWBC19. BMC Res Notes. Submitted.
  • Mentewab A., Matheson K., Adebiyi M., Robinson S., Elston B. 2014. RNA-seq analysis of the effect of kanamycin and the ABC transporter AtWBC19 on Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings reveals changes in metal content. PLoS ONE. In revision.
  • Mentewab A., Jacobsen M. and Flowers R. 2011. Incomplete homogenization of 18S ribosomal DNA coding regions in Arabidopsis thaliana. BMC Res Notes 4:93.
  • Burris K., Mentewab A., Ripp S. and Stewart C. N. Jr. 2008. An Arabidopsis thaliana ABC transporter that confers kanamycin resistance in transgenic plants does not endow resistance to Escherichia coli. Microbial Biotech. 1:191-195.
  • Yuan J.S., Burris N.R., Stewart N.R, Mentewab A. and Stewart C. N. Jr. 2007. Statistical tools for transgene copy number estimation based on real-time PCR. BMC Bioinformatics, 8 (Suppl 7): S6 (doi:10.1186/1471-2105-8-S7-S6).
  • Mentewab A. and Stewart C. N. Jr., 2005. Overexpression of an Arabidopsis thaliana ABC transporter confers kanamycin resistance to transgenic plants. Nat. Biotechnol. 23: 1177-1180.