Meet the Fellows

As a teen, Anton Jayakodiarachchige found his science inspiration in a Neil deGrasse Tyson docuseries. Soon after watching the famous astrophysicist, Anton entered a self-described “rabbit hole” exploring science. His interest in science blossomed leading him to enroll as an undergraduate Biology Major at the University at Buffalo.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do medical school, do research or something else,” Anton recalls. During Anton’s junior year he took Genetics Lab and conducted research, which helped him decide research was his path. He also had the opportunity to put research into practice when halfway through his undergraduate career Covid hit. Anton joined the Vax New York Consortium to assist in identifying optimal hubs for public vaccinations. The Public Health Department needed data to be analyzed, and Anton became one of the students that helped identify sites for best access.  

After graduating, Anton weighed his next steps. He is a first-generation college student, so the best pathway he understood was to continue through the college pipeline. He completed his Masters at the University at Buffalo and found inspiration in pursuing a PhD much closer to home. “My aunt finished her PhD when I finished my Masters. That was my exposure to consider a PhD. She advocated for it. She told me it would be stressful, so I should find something I am passionate about and find a helpful PI.” He found that at Syracuse University in his PI, Dr. Sarah Lucas.

Originally, Anton was interested in two labs at Syracuse University, but joined Dr. Lucas’s lab after his first-year lab rotation. “When I went through the faculty, I saw that Dr. Lucas worked on gut microbiome and bacteriophage. I knew a little bit about these topics from undergraduate, but never explored it. I rotated in Dr. Lucas’s lab first and the research was very interesting. From that point on I knew I wanted to continue researching microbiology, because I’ve always been more focused on human health. With Dr. Lucas, I could directly work with microbes, or the disease patients are dealing with and figure out the science behind it.”

Anton’s research looks at an inflammatory disease called Crohn’s disease. There is a bacteria highly present in the disease and it is unknown if this bacteria is causing the disease or if it is just able to survive in the environment. There are multiple strains of this bacteria, and Anton is trying to figure out which strains could be influencing the disease, or which strains are better adapted to the environment.  

“If we can differentiate the strains that could be influencing the disease we could create antibiotics or therapeutics to target only the harmful bacteria while preserving your ‘normal’ gut microbiome.”

Anton’s career goal is to work in the biotechnology industry to develop therapeutic drugs or applications, and working in Dr. Lucas’s lab is preparing him for that career. The root of all his efforts begins with his desire to help others. That desire was learned from his parents and reinforced by all his friends’ support through the years. “I’ve always been in the environment where I got a lot of help and I am thankful for that,” Anton says.

Although Anton has no ambitions to create his own science docuseries, he does leave the door open to joining Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk podcast later in his career.