The Scientific Work of Dr. Elizabeth Bent
Website under construction!
I am a career scientist with about 30 years of lab bench, field, and data analysis/technical writing/project design experience, and while I’ve focused on molecular microbial ecology for most of my career, I have in recent years become interested in a wide variety of topics that stem from current events and my knowledge of biological systems, and how they are studied.
I no longer do bench or field work, but happy to assist with other types of problems. I am always hoping to look at labs and see field experiment conditions and performance when working with a client on their particular system- these things may inform of unanticipated problems with data, sampling, etc.
Lists of my scholarly publications (books, book chapters, and journal articles, all peer reviewed) are linked below under Google Scholar. I will include my nonfiction book, DIARY OF A MAD SCIENTIST: ELEVEN YEARS (2013-2024) here as a publication because I am currently seeking reviewers for the technical parts- it is my hope that it can actually be a peer-reviewed work, even if it is self-published.
Electrophoresis rig, used for separating molecules in agarose gels via size/charge. Picture of K. Dunfield lab equipment made in 2019, photo by Seth Schwartz
Forays into Thought Experiments
Selected chapters in DIARY OF A MAD SCIENTIST: ELEVEN YEARS (2013-2024) (a work in progress)
Project: Cancer-Fighting Gut Bacteria
Is there interkingdom control of gene expression, where gut bacteria affect their hosts? Based on a crowdfunded 2014 preliminary study performed at UCLA.
Green Technology Ideas
I was thinking about how, in droplet PCR, the droplets expand: this led me to think about Stirling engines, then a whole host of other things based in biomimicry.
The Butterfly House Experiments
Are insect food chains affected by atmospheric nitrogen deposition? Nitrogen levels affect soil fungi that affect plant chemistry, which will affect insect herbivores.
Ecology Ideas, Including Biomonitoring
Can you use network analysis (correlations) over an array of samples to contrast the ecological complexity of different areas? Can you do this with insect biomarkers, with no need to sample insects separately?
Novel Forms of Data Analysis
In trying to describe the kinds of data analytics I would want for an idealized microbial ecology software package, I accidentally wound up proposing potentially new forms of complex data analysis, based on ordinations and Monte Carlo permutation analyses.
Like Jurassic Park, But Real
Hint: the fossil DNA does not come from amber, and it is not exactly DNA.
Publications
I have lists of publications with The Conversation (general audience), Google Scholar (technical audience), and my personal fiction and science news blog (I occasionally post scientific content).
“If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, you are right.”
Henry Ford