I am a doctoral candidate in the Microbiology Graduate Group focusing on chytridiomycosis in amphibians. I received a B.S. in Wildlife Conservation Biology from UC Davis and an M.S. in Biological Sciences from Cal Poly, Pomona.
The amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) continues to destroy amphibian populations throughout the world. Understanding Bd epidemiology and treatment options are imperative to ameliorating the pathogen’s destructive effects. In the Eisen lab, I incorporate field and bench techniques to explore microbial and molecular Bd treatments in vitro, and I use bioinformatics techniques to analyze Bd dissemination over large scale regions. My current region of study is Central America, but I have also conducted field work on Northern California Cascades frogs and Southern California Western toads.
Research is funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP), the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama (STRI) Short Term Fellowship, and the UC Davis Center for Population Biology research award.
PUBLICATIONS:
De León, Marina E., Harriet S. Wilson, Guillaume Jospin, and Jonathan A. Eisen. “Draft Genome Sequences and Genomic Analysis for Pigment Production in Bacteria Isolated from Blue Discolored Soymilk and Tofu.” Journal of Genomics 9 (2021): 55-67. doi:10.7150/jgen.65500
Leray M, Wilkins LGE, Apprill A, Bik HM, Clever F, Connolly SR, De León ME, et al. (2021). “Natural experiments and long-term monitoring are critical to understand and predict marine host–microbe ecology and evolution”. PLoS Biol 19(8): e3001322. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001322
De León, Marina E. (2020). “Comparison of in vitro methods to inhibit growth of a virulent strain of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Longcore, Pessier, and Nichols 1999)”. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 14(2) [General Section]: 12–23 (e235). http://amphibian-reptile-conservation.org/issues.html
De León, Marina E., Héctor Zumbado-Ulate, Adrián García-Rodríguez, Gilbert Alvarado, Hasan Sulaeman, Federico Bolaños, and Vance T. Vredenburg (2019). “Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis infection in amphibians predates first known epizootic in Costa Rica”. PLoS ONE 14(12). DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0208969
De León, Marina. E., Vredenburg, Vance. T., & Piovia-Scott, Jonah (2016). “Recent emergence of a chytrid fungal pathogen in California Cascades frogs (Rana cascadae)”. EcoHealth, 14(1), 155-161. DOI:10.1007/s10393-016-1201-1
Jonathan Eisen's Lab 