Biography

Michael completed his Honors Undergraduate Thesis under the direction of Dr. Sean D. Moore at the University of Central Florida in 2016. His thesis work focused on the relationship between constituents of e-cigarette juice and Group A Streptococcal pathogenesis, for which he constructed a novel environmental chamber to expose cells to aerosols. In 2017, Michael joined the Moore lab as a research technician, and primarily studied the role of ribosomal protein L9 in the maintenance of translation fidelity. Michael moved to Santa Barbara in 2018 when he joined our graduate program. He joined the Acosta-Alvear lab in 2019. Michael was a 2020 Visiting scholar in the Yang Shi lab (Harvard Medical School). Stop him in the hall to talk about tennis, surfing, motorcycles, his dog Boogie, or science. 

Publications

1. Ponce-Rojas JC*, Costello MS*, Proctor DA, Kosik KS, Wilson MZ, Arias C, and Acosta-Alvear D. "A Fast and Accessible Method for the Isolation of RNA, DNA, and Protein to Facilitate the Detection of SARS-CoV-2". J Clin Microbiol. 2020 Dec 8:JCM.02403-20. doi: 10.1128/JCM.02403-20. PMID: 33293367. *Equal contribution.

2. Rauch JN, Valois E, Ponce-Rojas JC, Aralis Z, Lach RL, Zappa F, Audouard M, Solley SC, Vaidya C, Costello MS, Smith H, Javanbakht A, Malear B, Polito L, Comer S, Arn K, Kosik KS, Acosta-Alvear D, Wilson MZ, and Arias, C. "CRISPR-based and RT-qPCR surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic individuals uncovers a shift in viral prevalence among a university population". MedRxiv, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.06.20169771.

3. Ponce-Rojas JC*, Costello MS*, Proctor DA, Kosik KS, Wilson MZ, Arias C, and Acosta-Alvear D. "A Fast and Accessible Method for the Isolation of RNA, DNA, and Protein to Facilitate the Detection of SARS-CoV-2". BioRxiv, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.29.178384. *Equal contribution.

4.  Rauch JN,  Valois E, Solley SC, Braig F, Lach RS, Audouard M, Ponce-Rojas JC, Costello MS, Baxter NJ, Kosik KS, Arias C, Acosta-Alvear D, Wilson MZ. "A Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy, Protocol for Cas13-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Genetic Material". BioRxiv, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.20.052159.

5. Smith AM, Costello MS, Kettring AH, Wingo RJ, and Moore SD. "Ribosome collisions alter frameshifting at translational reprogramming motifs in bacterial mRNAs". 2019. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910613116

6. Costello MS, Moore SD. "Expression Levels of Virulence Genes in Group A Streptococci: A Response to Aerosolized Propylene Glycol". 2016. Honors Undergraduate Theses. 106. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/106

Research Area

Michael is interested in the post-transcriptional determinants of stress responses, particularly those which influence the translation of select mRNAs.