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The Microbe Hackers is a very active and exciting undergraduate teaching and research lab at the University of Texas at Austin. We are part of the Freshman Research Initiative (the FRI program). We conduct research in the field of synthetic biology during the academic year as well as the summer. The stream is led by Professor Dennis Mishler, the research educator, and Professor Barrick, the stream’s PI. On our website, you will find information about our research projects, our course curriculum, and what it means to be a “Microbe Hacker” and a member of the FRI program overall.  At the top of our homepage are links to other pages.  I invite you to explore!  We are also working on a “Why join Microbe Hackers?” page for new students.  This page will be updated before the fall open house.

In this FRI stream, we do research in the vast and emerging field of synthetic biology. We genetically engineer bacteria for a purpose of our choosing. To do so, we must work with “genetic devices” (DNA sequences) and specific technology and techniques that are used in research across many disciplines: synthetic biology, molecular biology, microbiology, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience, and many more.  The most common future goals of students who join our stream are: medical school (or other health professions), PhD programs, biotech/industry, or exploring options!  

Students in our group have presented their research at symposiums on campus and conferences across the country, published blog posts and research articles, and gone on to graduate programs in business and the health professions, medical school, and PhD programs. Others have taken their experience and pivoted, using the time with us to develop vital skills for 21st century job markets. Many of these students, maybe even most, joined us with little to NO previous lab experience.

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While this website is ~90% complete, some parts are still under construction. Our very old website (very out of date -2019- and not maintained) can be found on archive.org here: Old Microbe Hackers website. Note: It may load slowly and it does not reflect our current set of active research projects.

To do list for Summer 2025:

• Update all research pages and make sure links on main research page are functional
  • Updates should include some figures or models/overviews showing goals and project progress.  Figures from published materials should be present as well as links to relevant papers  [EFM 1.0, Gutierrez 2019, HRI Education Kit, for example]
• Why join Microbe Hackers page needs to be completed and a landing site for it determined.
  • Link to homepage text, but should it reside within “about us”?
  • Example syllabi or at least the weekly progression for spring and fall (2025?) should be included
  • Something about student outcomes is essential… Percent who continue in fall and as mentors? MH 4 Life students?  Med School outcomes? (started)
• (done) Update pages with Sp2025 photos (stream party, graduating seniors)
• I am continuing to update EFM Calculator as we prepare for manuscript submission