Megan Kempher

Postdoc Fellow

Supervisor: West
Email: kempher@ou.edu

Education:
B.S., University of Illinois
M.S., Southern Illinois University
Ph.D., Southern Illinois University

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow with a joint appointment in the labs of Dr. Ann West in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma and Dr. Jimmy Ballard in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. My broad research goal is to determine how the human pathogen Clostridioides difficile coordinates the intricate regulatory events that lead to toxin production and sporulation. C. difficile is the leading cause of hospital acquired infections in the United States and very few treatment options currently exist. Our work aims to identify novel targets for therapeutic development.

My previous work focused on Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough (DvH), a model organism used to study sulfate reduction. We used long term experimental evolution and various other molecular techniques to better understand the mechanisms of adaptation of DvH to field related stressors. This work was part of a larger project aimed to increase our understanding of the impact of microbial communities on their ecosystem.

Publications

Selected Publications from the last 3 years:

Kempher ML, Morris SC, Shadid TM, Menon SK, Ballard JD, West AH (2022). Response regulator CD1688 is a negative modulator of sporulation in Clostridioides difficile. J. Bacteriol. 204(8):e0013022.
Tao X, Zhou A, Kempher ML, Liu J, Peng M, Li Y, Michael JP, Chakraborty R, Deutschbauer AM, Arkin AP, Zhou J. (2022) Development of a markerless deletion mutagenesis system in nitrate-reducing bacterium Rhodanobacter denitrificans. Appl Environ Microbiol. 26;88(14):e0040122.
Tao X, Liu J, Kempher ML, Xu T, Zhou J. (2022) In vivo functional characterization of hydrophilic X2 modules in the cellulosomal scaffolding protein. Front Microbiol. 13:861549.
Peng M, Wang D, Lui LM, Nielsen T, Tian R, Kempher ML, Tao X, Pan C, Chakraborty R, Deutschbauer AM, Thorgersen MP, Adams MWW, Fields MW, Hazen TC, Arkin AP, Zhou A, Zhou J. (2022) Genomic features and pervasive negative selection in Rhodanobacter strains isolated from nitrate and heavy metal contaminated aquifer. Microbiol Spectr. Feb 23;10(1):e0259121.
Xiao N, Zhou A, Kempher ML, Zhou B, Shi ZJ, Yuan M, Guo X, Wu L, Ning D, Van Nostrand J, Firestone MK, Zhou J (2022). Disentangling direct from indirect relationships in association networks. PNAS. 119(2):e2109995199.
Bishop CE, Shadid TM, Lavey NP, Kempher ML, Ballard JD, Duerfeldt AS (2022). Identification of ClpP dual isoform disruption as an antisporulation strategy for Clostridioides difficile 630. J. Bacteriol. 15;204(2):e0041121.
Shi W, Ma Q, Pan F, Fan Y, Kempher ML, Ning D, Qu Y, Wall JD, Zhou A, Zhou J (2021). Genetic basis of chromate adaptation and the role of the pre-existing genetic divergence during an experimental evolution study with Desulfovibrio vulgaris populations. mSystems. 6(3):e0049321.
Wu B, Liu F, Zhou A, Li J, Shu L, Kempher ML, Yang X, Ning D, Pan F, Zane GM, Wall JD, Van Nostrand JD, Juneau P, Chen S, Yan Q, Zhou J, He Z (2020). Experimental evolution reveals nitrate tolerance mechanisms in Desulfovibrio vulgaris. ISMEJ vol. 14,11 (2020): 2862-2876.
Kempher ML, Tao X, Song R, Wu B, Stahl DA, Wall JD, Arkin AP, Zhou A, Zhou J (2020). Effects of genetic and physiological divergence on the evolution of a sulfate-reducing bacterium under conditions of elevated temperature. mBio. 11(4), e00569-20.
Tao X, Xu T, Kempher ML, Liu J, Zhou J (2020). Precise promoter integration improves cellulose bioconversion and thermotolerance in Clostridium cellulolyticum. Metab Eng. 2020;60:110-118.

Complete List of Published Work can be found here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/megan.kempher.1/bibliography/public/