In May, I attended the 109th American Society for Microbiology General Meeting in Philadelphia to present a poster on the research I started through UBRP. As an undergraduate in environmental science I worked with Dr. Charles Gerba studying two organisms non-O1/non-O139 Vibrio cholerae and Aeromonas spp., which are thermotolerant bacteria that can cause nonepidemic diarrheal diseases and opportunistic skin infections. Since these two organisms have been found to be infectious agents in recreational waters of Arizona, I had to sample 30 or so water sources in Arizona and culture the two bacteria. The ultimate goal of the study was to determine whether these organisms are a significant health threat to recreational bathers in Arizona and to develop correlations with simpler water quality measures.  The work we have done thus far found that 48% of recreational waters tested positive for V. cholerae and 85% tested positive for Aeromonas spp.  This leads us to conclude that these opportunistic pathogens may represent an unrecognized health threat to Arizona's recreational bathers.

After whirling through the hectic month of May and finishing my last finals a few days before, I scrambled to refresh my brain on the background information regarding my research and the organisms of interest. Just imagining the difficult questions that might be asked forced me to review the batch of journal articles once more. Reading. Highlighting. Underlining.  Then suddenly I was in Philadelphia.

We arrived early so we were able to visit some tourist attractions on the Philadelphia Trolley. One of the more memorable visits was the National Constitution Center, which displayed our great constitution's history. Since becoming a US citizen last November, the historic significance was very different compared to the last time I visited Philadelphia six years ago.  I felt again privileged to become part of the country represented by the giant flag of red, white, and blue.

After attending the opening ceremony and many interesting talks, the day came to present. Inside the enormous Philadelphia Convention Center there were hundreds of posters from all different fields of microbiology. Once I put up my poster, I waited nervously and one by one people attending the conference came to my poster asking questions. To my surprise, all of the encounters were amicable! Almost everyone gave me good advice and suggestions on further research and complemented me on presenting a poster as an undergraduate. One person even sympathized with me about all the driving I had to do get the water samples. The poster presentation was such a valuable experience; just the opposite of all I had imagined. At the end of my session I felt that I gained so much, plus ideas for future research.

The last few days were so much more fun and relaxing now that I had my poster presentation out of the way. In each of the remaining days, I attended interesting talks many of them outside my studies such clinical microbiology and vaccinology. These colloquiums once again underlined the fact that microbes are everywhere and that there is no end to studying them. The latter made me feel very fortunate.

After the conference, I was able to enjoy the damp, smoky city atmosphere in Philadelphia. Having lived in large cities for almost half of my life, I did not realize how much I missed smog filled skies and brightly lit nights. While many of the Southwestern natives were sneezing and complaining about the bad air, I was trying my best to inhale all the nostalgia.

I want to thank Dr. Charles Gerba, Dr. Kelly Bright and everyone else that helped me with my research and for giving me the opportunity to attend 109th American Society for Microbiology General Meeting. Thank you UBRP for providing me with such a great experience! 

John Dohyung Kwon, UBRPer in Dr. Charles Gerba's lab, Microbiology