Lidstrom Laboratory

Methylotrophic Microbial Observatory

Biology Action Agenda

Dept. of Chemical Engineering

Dept. of Technical Communication

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About Mary Lidstrom

Dr. Lidstrom is a Professor of Microbiology and holds the Frank Jungers Chair of Engineering, in the Department of Chemical Engineering, at the University of Washington, Seattle.

She received her B.S. in Microbiology from Oregon State University. After receiving her M.S. and Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Lidstrom conducted work as a Leverhulme postdoctoral Fellow in Microbiology at the University of Sheffield. Dr. Lidstrom has previously held academic appointments in Microbiology at the Unversity of Washington, in the Center for Great Lakes Studies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in Environmental Engineering Science at the California Institute of Technology.


She currently is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology and FEMS Microbial Ecology. Dr. Lidstrom is the Vice Provost of Research.

About the Lidstrom Laboratory

The Lidstrom laboratory is located in the Departments of Microbiology and Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.

Research in Dr. Lidstrom's laboratory is focused on molecular and metabolic manipulations of methylotrophic bacteria, which are capable of growth on methane, methanol, and methylated amines. The long-term goal of this research is to develop environmentally sound and economically viable alternatives to current chemical production and cleanup strategies. Genetic, physiological and metabolic modeling approaches are used to understand key metabolic pathways in these bacteria, with the goal of directed manipulation of key metabolic pathways and enzymes. The laboratory's recent discovery that methylotrophic bacteria contain a metabolic pathway previously thought to be found only in methanogenic archaea has generated a new research thrust focused on evolution of C1 metabolic pathways across the bacterial/archaeal boundaries. These studies are now being augmented by genomic approaches, including proteomics and expression microarrays. In addition, the laboratory is involved with an interdisciplinary center, the Microscale Life Sciences Center, with a focus on studying metabolism in single cells.