User:Brooksbiology

David M. Brooks, Ph.D. (b. 1972)

I am a professor at East Central College, a two-year institution outside of St Louis. I am the coordinator and director of the Biotechnology Program there. I belong to the Biology Department as well. I teach discipline-specific as well as general core course Biology classes, Environmental Science, and Biotechnology classes.

I attended Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, where I majored in Biology and minored in Chemistry. I graduated Cum Laude in 1995.

I completed my Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis in 2003 in Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis. Under the supervision of Dr. Barbara Kunkel, our team identified the first well-characterized mutations that affect the manufacture of coronatine, an important phytotoxin, in Pseudomonas syringae, a plant pathogen, which infects plants in the crucifer family as well as tomatoes.

I completed additional training with Dr. R. Mark L. Buller at St. Louis University, where I examined the role of a novel virulence factor in poxvirus pathogenesis. There I was awarded a National Institutes for Health Midwest Regional Center of Excellence fellowship.