Mya Breitbart is an American biologist and professor of biological oceanography at the
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is ...
's College of Marine Science. She is best known for her contributions to the field of viral
metagenomics
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...
.
Popular Science
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
recognized her because of her approach of not trying to sequence individual viruses or organisms but to sequence everything in a given ecosystem.
Early life and education
Breitbart grew up in
South Brunswick, New Jersey
South Brunswick is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The township is centrally located within the Raritan Valley region and is an outer-ring suburb of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of th2020 Unit ...
and graduated from
South Brunswick High School. Her father was a food chemist at
Lipton
Lipton is a British brand of tea, owned by Ekaterra. Lipton was also a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, later sold to Argyll Foods, after which the company sold only tea. The company is named after its founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, who fo ...
and her mother (a geneticist) set up science laboratories at Breitbart's high school.
She completed a
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
degree at the
Florida Institute of Technology
The Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech or FIT) is a private research university in Melbourne, Florida. The university comprises four academic colleges: Engineering & Science, Aeronautics, Psychology & Liberal Arts, and Business. Appr ...
where she was first introduced to marine
virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...
es and viral ecology.
Under the supervision of
Forest Rohwer
Forest Rohwer (born 1969) is an American microbial ecologist and Professor of Biology at San Diego State University.http://coralreefsystems.org/content/forest-rohwer His particular interests include coral reef microbial ecology and viruses as ...
, Breitbart then completed a PhD in cell and molecular biology in 2006.
Career
Breitbart is an environmental virologist at the
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is ...
's College of Marine Science, in
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
,
U.S.A.
Her research focuses on mapping genomes in an ecosystem i.e.
metagenomics
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...
.
In 2002, instead of isolating each genome individually for sequencing, Breitbart and her colleagues used
shotgun sequencing
In genetics, shotgun sequencing is a method used for sequencing random DNA strands. It is named by analogy with the rapidly expanding, quasi-random shot grouping of a shotgun.
The Sanger sequencing#Method, chain-termination method of DNA sequencin ...
to simultaneously sequence genetic material in marine samples, demonstrating that 200 liters of seawater contains over 5000 different viruses.
Later, in 2006, she and her colleagues were among the first to use
high-throughput sequencing
DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. The ...
to investigate environmental samples - specifically, they used
pyrosequencing
Pyrosequencing is a method of DNA sequencing (determining the order of nucleotides in DNA) based on the "sequencing by synthesis" principle, in which the sequencing is performed by detecting the nucleotide incorporated by a DNA polymerase. Pyrosequ ...
to investigate environmental genome sequences in deep mine
microbial ecology
Microbial ecology (or environmental microbiology) is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria—as well as viru ...
.
Since then, Breitbart has applied viral metagenomics to better understand viruses present in insects, spiders, and plants.
"Outstanding Scientists" are said to have an
h-index
The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...
(Publication impact) of 40 or above.
Breitbart has an h-index of 54, and her research publications have been cited, in 2019, 13,700 times.
As a result of her expertise in viral metagenomics, Breitbart has previously worked with the
Kansas City Zoo
The Kansas City Zoo is a zoo founded in 1909. It is located in Swope Park at 6800 Zoo Drive Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. The zoo has a Friends of the Zoo program. It is home to more than 1,300 animals and is an accredited memb ...
's veterinarians to investigate the virus which led to an unknown but fatal respiratory illness in four sea lions.
In 2013, the
Popular Science
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
monthly magazine named Breitbart as one of its annual 'Brilliant Ten', in recognition of her contributions to the field of viral metagenomics.
In 2017, Breitbart was elected a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
in the biological sciences category.
Selected bibliography
* Mya Breitbart, Peter Salamon, Bjarne Andresen, Joseph M Mahaffy, Anca M Segall, David Mead, Farooq Azam, Forest Rohwer. ''Genomic analysis of uncultured marine viral communities''.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...
. 2002.
* Mya Breitbart, Ian Hewson, Ben Felts, Joseph M Mahaffy, James Nulton, Peter Salamon, Forest Rohwer. ''Metagenomic analyses of an uncultured viral community from human feces.''
Journal of Bacteriology
The ''Journal of Bacteriology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1916. It is published by the American Society for Microbiology and the editor in chief is George A. O'Toole (Dartmouth College). The journal is delayed o ...
. 2003.
* Florent E Angly, Ben Felts, Mya Breitbart, Peter Salamon, Robert A Edwards, Craig Carlson, Amy M Chan, Matthew Haynes, Scott Kelley, Hong Liu, Joseph M Mahaffy, Jennifer E Mueller, Jim Nulton, Robert Olson, Rachel Parsons, Steve Rayhawk, Curtis A Suttle, Forest Rohwer. ''The marine viromes of four oceanic regions''.
PLOS biology
''PLOS Biology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of biology. Publication began on October 13, 2003. It is the first journal published by the Public Library of Science. The editor-in-chief is Nonia Pariente.
In ad ...
. 2006.
* Elizabeth A Dinsdale, Robert A Edwards, Dana Hall, Florent Angly, Mya Breitbart, Jennifer M Brulc, Mike Furlan, Christelle Desnues, Matthew Haynes, Linlin Li, Lauren McDaniel, Mary Ann Moran, Karen E Nelson, Christina Nilsson, Robert Olson, John Paul, Beltran Rodriguez Brito, Yijun Ruan, Brandon K Swan, Rick Stevens, David L Valentine, Rebecca Vega Thurber, Linda Wegley, Bryan A White, Forest Rohwer. ''Functional metagenomic profiling of nine biomes''.
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
. 2008.
* Karyna Rosario, ''Mya Breitbart'', Balázs Harrach, Joaquim Segalés, Eric Delwart, Philippe Biagini, Arvind Varsani. ''Revisiting the taxonomy of the family Circoviridae: establishment of the genus Cyclovirus and removal of the genus Gyrovirus''.
Archives of Virology
The ''Archives of Virology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in virology. It is published by Springer Science+Business Media and is the official journal of the Virology Division of the International Union of Microbiologica ...
. 2017.
External links
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breitbart, Mya
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American women biologists
Scientists from New Jersey
Florida Institute of Technology alumni
University of South Florida faculty
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
21st-century American biologists
People from South Brunswick, New Jersey
South Brunswick High School (New Jersey) alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology
American women academics
21st-century American women scientists