Abigail Landers

Department: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Faculty Adviser: Andrew Moeller
Year of Study: G1
Undergraduate School: UC Berkeley
Undergraduate Major: Microbial biology

Personal Bio

I was very, very lucky when I had the opportunity to join a plant genetics lab as my freshman year began. The training I received and the work I did in that lab helped me understand better what I was interested in, how scientific research actually works, and how I prefer to work. Nothing but the relationships I developed with my friends compares in terms of how formative a college experience it was for me.

I'm passionate about education (as a former high school teacher), and I'm an adventurer (primarily hiking, backpacking, and biking). You probably know Princeton better than I do, because I followed my advisor here after starting my PhD with him at Cornell.

Fun Fact

If I remember something that happened, I remember the day of the week it happened on, which is basically never useful in the slightest.

Research Pitch

I study what differentiates the gut bacteria of wild mice from the gut bacteria of lab mice. Lab mice have immature immune systems compared to wild mice, which sometimes profoundly impacts our ability to translate research findings from mice into safe and effective treatments for humans. However, the immune responses of the same lab mice with wild microbiomes are a much closer match for humans. Therefore, I am interested in 1) identifying what ecological or evolutionary changes occurred in the gut microbiomes of mice during their captivity as lab mice, and 2) identifying what specific differences between wild and captive microbiomes are responsible for training the most immune system.

I use a combination of experimental evolution, bacterial culturing, and transferring microbiota from donor mice to recipients to answer these questions. These experiments yield a lot of sequencing data to analyze, so the work alternates between lab work at the bench and computationally intensive analysis in the office.

If you're interested in these questions, there's a place for you whether your knowledge and current abilities lean computational or experimental.

Upcoming Programs That I Am Attending:

Plans for Summer 2025

Interested in participating in Summer 2025 ReMatch+ program.