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![Frank Lake outside. Photo](/sites/cec.lu.se/files/styles/lu_personal_page_desktop/public/2024-06/frank_lake.jpg.webp?itok=8A-iOCZS)
About me
At the end of 2023 I defended my PhD thesis at the Wageningen University, the Netherlands. This PhD project focused on the foodborne human pathogen Listeria monocytogenes in the production and processing environments of the white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus). The aim of the project was to better understand the ecology and physiology of L. monocytogenes in mushroom environments to better combat this pathogen in this specific environment. Several methods were applied to determine the characteristics of L. monocytogenes in this environment. This included among others the sequencing of the isolated strains to determine the diversity, variability tests to compare growth capacities, co-incubation tests to view effect of microbiota and cleaning and disinfection (C&D) assays to assess the effect of C&D on biofilms formed on different food processing surfaces.
Before I started the PhD project at the Wageningen University, I did my bachelor and master studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. These bachelor and master studies in the field of microbiology and molecular biology focused on gene and system behavior in (pathogenic) bacteria.
About my research
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Functional Ecology Group and the Centre for Environmental and Climate Science. Here, I work on a project to investigate the microbial composition (bacteria, fungi, protists) in different kinds of agricultural soil. More specifically, this project aims to investigate possible differences in microbial composition between organic farmland and conventional farmland with respect to the diversity of the microbial community in these soils. To investigate this, this will include sequencing analysis to determine the microbial communities in the soil together with other analyses of the soil (as pH and organic matter) and documentation of previous land use by the farmers.