Mya Breitbart, PhD

Contact Info

• Academic Email: mya@usf.edu
• View My C.V. | View My Website | View My Lab Site

Discipline

Genomics; Marine Microbiology; Wastewater Microbiology; and Virology

Specialization

• Microbiology, Genomics, Virology, Molecular Biology

Biography

Dr. Breitbart is a professor in the College of Marine Science. She has pioneered the field of viral metagenomics for the discovery of viruses across a wide range of hosts, environmental reservoirs, and insect vectors. Major viral projects within her current research group include studying the diversity of circular eukaryotic single-stranded DNA viruses in invertebrates and fungi, using vector-enabled metagenomics to study plant viruses transmitted by whiteflies, developing and applying new viral indicators of fecal pollution worldwide, identifying novel viruses in healthy and diseased marine organisms of critical ecological and economic importance, elucidating factors that drive patterns in spatiotemporal variability in the diversity of aquatic viruses, and examining the role of bacteriophages in manipulating gut microbiomes in a marine model system. In addition, the Breitbart lab uses environmental DNA to simultaneously assess the biodiversity of multiple trophic levels in the oceans and is applying DNA barcoding to identify early life stages of fish.

Research Interests

• In every milliliter of surface seawater, there are 1 million bacteria and 10 million viruses. Microbes are very diverse, and play important roles in global carbon and nutrient cycling. Dr. Breitbart has spent over a decade studying oceanic viral abundance, diversity, and biogeography. Along the way, she played an integral part in developing the scientific field of viral metagenomics, and her lab continues to expand the application of this technique to new environments and research questions. The Breitbart lab uses molecular techniques to examine the diversity, distribution, and ecological roles of viruses and bacteria in a wide range of environments – including seawater, animals, plants, insects, zooplankton, coral reefs, stromatolites, and reclaimed water.
• Notable recent findings include the first discovery of viruses infecting zooplankton (the most numerous animals in the ocean), the first identification of single-stranded DNA viruses in invertebrates, the first multi-year study of viral abundance in the open ocean, the discovery that plant viruses dominate human feces which enabled the development of new indicators of fecal pollution, the identification of viral pathogens potentially involved in marine mammal mortality events, and the creation of new methods for identifying vector-transmitted viruses. Currently funded by an NSF Assembling the Tree of Life grant, the Breitbart lab is now focusing on exploring the diversity and ecology of single-stranded DNA viruses, whose widespread environmental distribution has only recently been recognized.
• In September 2013, Dr. Breitbart was selected by Popular Science magazine (October issue), as one of their “Brilliant 10″—an annual feature profiling 10 young scientists who are doing truly groundbreaking work in their fields. To identify those individuals that the scientific community feels are the best, brightest, and most worthy of widespread recognition, Popular Science magazine polls professional organizations and scientists in the field.