Slava Epstein: From immigrant painter to world-renowned biologist

Prof. Slava Epstein

Prof. Epstein has developed an elegantly simple solution to a cultivation problem

Dr. Epstein’s research focused on what he believes to be the single greatest barrier in the way of understanding microbial life. It is known as the great plate count anomaly. “The challenge is this: 150 years of microbiology have brought into culture a minute percent of the global microbial diversity. Somewhere around 1 percent. It’s small.” Despite basic observation by, for example, microscopic cell counting making it clear that there are huge numbers of microbes in the environment, scientists are only able to cultivate a small number of them. Not being able to grow the microbes in a lab setting has significant implications. “The remaining 99 percent is THE largest source of biological and chemical novelty in the world, and it’s unexplored and essentially untouched.” –Joshua Timmons, Biology Class of 2017 for COS News
Read the full story here: https://cos.northeastern.edu//2016/01/slava-epstein-2/

Biology