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 university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

's College of Marine Science. She is best known for her contributions to the field of viral

metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of all genetics, genetic material from all organisms in a particular environment, providing insights into their composition, diversity, and functional potential. Metagenomics has allowed researchers to profile the mic ...

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

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 (New Jersey), township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is centrally located within the Raritan River, Raritan Valley region and is an outer-ring subur ...

and graduated from South Brunswick High School. Her father was a food chemist at

Lipton Lipton is a brand named after its founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, Tom Lipton, who started an eponymous grocery retail business in the United Kingdom in 1871. The brand was used for various consumer goods sold in Lipton stores, including tea from 1 ...

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, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree at the

Florida Institute of Technology 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. Approxim ...

where she was first introduced to marine

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are ...

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. His particular interests include coral reef microbial ecology and viruses as both evolutionary agents and opportunistic pathoge ...

, Breitbart then completed a PhD in cell and molecular biology in 2006.

Career

Breitbart is an environmental virologist at the

's College of Marine Science, in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, U.S.A. Her research focuses on mapping genomes in an ecosystem i.e.

. 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, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. 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 a discipline where the interaction of Microorganism, microorganisms and their environment are studied. Microorganisms are known to have important and harmful ecological relationships within t ...

. 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 success indicators such as winning t ...

(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 & Aquarium is a zoo founded in 1909 and 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 to help promote the work of the zoo which sees over o ...

's veterinarians to investigate the virus which led to an unknown but fatal respiratory illness in four sea lions. In 2013, the

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 a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

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 Scie ...

. 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 A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

. 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 ...

. 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 is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

. 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. 2017.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breitbart, Mya Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women biologists Biologists 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