Steven Bowden

Dr. Bowden earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, in the U.K., after completing his BSc in biochemistry at the University of Birmingham, U.K. During his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Prof. George Salmond, he investigated the regulation of carbapenem antibiotic biosynthesis in the plant pathogenic food spoilage bacterium, Pectobacterium carotovorum. During his time in Cambridge, Dr. Bowden participated in laboratory instruction, mentored and advised undergraduate and graduate students, and published research.

After completing his Ph.D. in 2006, Dr. Bowden served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, U.K. and identified central metabolic reactions that support the ability of Salmonella enterica sv. typhimurium to replicate within host cells during infection. As a postdoctoral associate at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, Dr. Bowden studied (p)ppGpp and quorum sensing signaling in Pectobacterium atrosepticum. He went on to a project engineering a novel biofuel fermentation pathway in Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, U.K. In 2013, Dr. Bowden joined the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, as a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow hosted by Prof. Hirotada Mori, working on the development of a novel transposon sequencing method called 2D-TnSeq. In 2015, he joined the Biotechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Igor Libourel’s research group, continuing the development of 2D-TnSeq in Escherichia coli.

Dr. Bowden is a member of the Society for General Microbiology (UK), the Society for Applied Microbiology (UK), the American Society for Microbiology. He is a JSPS Fellow, and a manuscript reviewer for the journal Microbiology.