Higgins Hall 420A
Telephone: 617-552-3986
Email: babak.momeni@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0003-1271-5196
Systems biology of microbial communities; mathematical modeling of biological systems; microbial ecology.
Communities of interacting microbes are abundant in nature and play critical roles at virtually all levels of life, ranging from global carbon cycling to the formation of oral cavities. Microbial communities can benefit us as resident microbiome, for example by facilitating food digestion or by blocking harmful pathogens. They can also harm us, for instance by causing persistent infections in slow-healing wounds or in lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. Through interactions among species, microbial communities exhibit overall functions that cannot be achieved efficiently by any single member species. The aim of the lab is to understand how cell-level interactions among members lead to such community-level functions.
Complexity of natural microbial communities (involving many species, multitude of interactions, and non-steady environment) has impeded attempts to discover the link between community interactions and functions. To study microbial communities, our lab instead examines communities at different levels of complexity to search for general governing principles. These include simulated in silico communities, synthetic communities of microbes engineered to engage in defined interactions, and simple microbial communities isolated from nature. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we combine quantitative experimentation with mathematical modeling to discover interactions and to explain functions that arise from those interactions. Our long-term goal is to devise strategies to control microbial communities. This will have broad impact in biomedical applications (e.g. managing microbial infections), environmental applications (e.g. degrading waste), as well as industrial applications (e.g. producing biofuels).
N. Sandlin and B. Momeni, “Starch can expedite the screening for bacterial aflatoxin degraders,” Scientific Reports (2024).
Y. Zhu and B. Momeni, “Revisiting the invasion paradox: resistance-richness relationship is driven by augmentation and displacement trends,” PLOS Comput. Biol. (2024).
M. Zaccaria*, L. Genovese*, B.E. Lawhorn, W. Dawson, A.S. Joyal, J. Hu, P. Autissier, T. Nakajima, W.E. Johnson, I. Fofana, M. Farzan, and B. Momeni, “Predicting potential SARS-CoV-2 mutations of concern via full quantum mechanical modelling,” Journal of Royal Society Interface (2024).
M. Zaccaria, N. Sandlin, Y. Soen, and B. Momeni, “Partner-assisted artificial selection of a secondary function for efficient bioremediation,” iScience (2023).
S. Dedrick, V. Warrier, K. P. Lemon, and B. Momeni, “When does a Lotka-Volterra model represent microbial interactions? Insights from in-vitro nasal bacterial communities,” mSystems (2023).
A. Lobanov*, S. Dyckman*, H. Kurkjian, and B. Momeni, “Spatial structure may favor or disfavor microbial coexistence,” eLife (2023).
M. Zaccaria*, W. Dawson*, D. Russell Kish, M. Reverberi, M.C. Bonaccorsi di Patti, M. Domin, V. Cristiglio, L. Dellafiora, F. Gabel, T. Nakajima, L. Genovese, and B. Momeni, “Theoretical-Experimental study of laccase as a detoxifier of aflatoxins,” Scientific Reports (2023).
M. Zaccaria*, L. Genovese*, W. Dawson, T. Nakajima, M. Farzan, W. Johnson, and B. Momeni, “Probing the mutational landscape of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein via quantum mechanical modeling of crystallographic structures,” PNAS Nexus (2022).
K. Lee-Sarwar*, S. Dedrick*, B. Momeni, R. Kelly, R. Zeiger, G. O'Connor, M. Sandel, L. Bacharier, A. Beigelman, N. Laranjo, D. Gold, J. Lasky-Su, A. Litonjua, Y.-Y. Liu, and S. Weiss, “Association of the Gut Microbiome and Metabolome with Wheeze Frequency in Childhood Asthma,” J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. (2022).
N. Sandlin*, D. Russell Kish*, J. Kim, M. Zaccaria, and B. Momeni, “Current and emerging tools of computational biology to improve the detoxification of mycotoxins,” Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2022).
H. Kurkjian, M.J. Akbari, and B. Momeni, “The impact of interactions on invasion and colonization resistance in microbial communities,” PLOS Comput. Biol. (2021).
M. Zaccaria, W. Dawson, V. Cristiglio, M. Reverberi, L. E. Ratcliff, T. Nakajima, L. Genovese, and B. Momeni, “Designing a bioremediator: mechanistic models guide cellular and molecular specialization,” Current Opinion in Biotechnology (2020).
L. Niehaus, I. Boland, M. Liu, K. Chen, D. Fu, C. Henckel, K. Chaung, S. Espinoza Miranda, S. Dyckman, M. Crum, S. Dedrick, W. Shou, and B. Momeni. “Microbial coexistence through chemical-mediated interactions,” Nature Communications (2019).
B. Momeni, “Division of Labor: How Microbes Split Their Responsibility,” Current Biology (2018).
B. Momeni, Li Xie, and W. Shou, “Lotka-Volterra pairwise modeling fails to capture diverse pairwise microbial interactions,” eLife (2017).
S. Widder, R. Allen, T. Pfeiffer, T. Curtis, C. Wiuf, W. Sloan, O. Cordero, S. Brown, B. Momeni, W. Shou, H. Kettle, H. Flint, A. Haas, B. Laroche, J.-U. Kreft, P. Rainey, S. Freilich, S. Schuster, K. Milferstedt, J. Roelof Van der Meer, T. Grosskopf, J. Huisman, A. Free, C. Picioreanu, C. Quince, I. Klapper, S. Labarthe, B. Smets, H. Wang, Isaac Newton Institute Fellows, and O. Soyer “Challenges in microbial ecology: building predictive understanding of community function and dynamics,” ISME J (2016).
B. Momeni, A. J. Waite, and W. Shou, “Spatial self-organization favors heterotypic cooperation over cheating,” eLife (2013).
B. Momeni, K. A. Brileya, M. W. Fields, and W. Shou, “Strong inter-population cooperation leads to partner intermixing in microbial communities,” eLife (2013).
B. Momeni*, C. -C. Chen*, K. L. Hillesland*, A. J. Waite, and W. Shou, “Using artificial systems to explore the ecology and evolution of symbioses,” Cell. Mol. Life Sci. (2011).
B. Momeni, S. Yegnanarayanan, M. Soltani, A. A. Eftekhar, E. Shah Hosseini, and A. Adibi, “Silicon nanophotonic devices for integrated sensing,” J. Nanophoton. (2009).
B. Momeni, E. Shah Hosseini, and A. Adibi, “Planar photonic crystal spectrometers in silicon-nitride for the visible range,” Opt. Express (2009).
B. Momeni, J. Huang, M. Soltani, M. Askari, S. Mohammadi, A. Adibi, and M. Rakhshandehroo, “Compact wavelength demultiplexing using focusing negative index photonic crystal superprisms,” Opt. Express (2006).
B. Momeni and A. Adibi, “Adiabatic matching stage for coupling of light to extended Bloch modes of photonic crystals,” Appl. Phys. Lett. (2005).
B. Momeni and A. Adibi, “An approximate effective index model for efficient analysis and control of beam propagation effects in photonic crystals,” J. Lightwave Technol. (2005).
B. Momeni and B. Rashidian, “Improved coupled wave analysis of two-dimensional planar multiple gratings,” IEEE Trans. Ant. Propag. (2004).
(* equal contribution)