Proposal Review with Lea:
As a scientist, my understanding is that the role of bioluminescence in bacteria is not really understood, but they are not communicating through with the light. They communicate with each other through quorum sensing, which is a chemical phenomenon, dependent on population size, that causes some gene-signaling within each cell to occur. Because the phenomenon depends on population size, the bacteria are acting as a multicellular organism. This occurs for many bacteria, not just bioluminesent ones. Some researchers feel that the bioluminescence may be related to DNA repair.
Again, I would reiterate what I said in class that quorum sensing is a communication, not a conversation.
If you wanted to think of some human activity that might be similar to quorum sensing, think of crowd-dependent activities. What is a critical number needed to induce some kind of activity.
Now, the bioluminescence is turned on because of a critical number of cells that make the auto inducer, but the bioluminescence is not a means of communication, at least that is my understanding.
On a different topic, the number of collaborators you propose is enormous, and scientists don't have much time, even for their own graduate students. So, this would be problematic. How are you going to convince them? You need to understand their work before you approach them.
If you want to work with bioluminescent bacteria, I'm sure you could find someone on the west coast in northern California. This might simplify your collaboration.
Lea Cox
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