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Ashley's Biggest Takeaways
- Prior to her role as Scientific Director for ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Applied and Environmental Microbiology unit, Garcia was Senior Director of R&D at Boost Biomes, a biotech startup focused on bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers.
- Garcia's passion for microbiology began studying soil remediation at Texas A&M University.
- Seeing microbes under the microscope for the first time felt like discovering “another world,” sparking a lifelong fascination with what microbes are and can do.
- Driven by a desire to see her science make an immediate impact, Garcia was drawn to industry after completing her Ph.D.
- At , a biotech startup company, Veronica helped transform diverse microbial isolates into bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers and bio-stimulants for agriculture and food. She progressed from bench scientist to senior Director of R&D, overseeing discovery, genomics, bioinformatics and product development, and learned the realities of scale-up, cost, regulation and end-user needs.
- She also monitored air, water and surfaces for the shuttle and ISS and NASA, ensuring astronaut safety by tracking microbial loads and potential pathogens.
- ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿is organizing around 3 scientific units, ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM), ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Health and ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Mechanism Discovery.
- These units will equip researchers to translate discovery into impact while providing a forum to collectively shape the future of the field.
- The AEM unit provides the space and unique expertise for microbial scientists and partners to directly contribute to a healthier, more sustainable world through applied and environmental innovation and brings together experts whose work connects microbial processes to outcomes in ecosystems, infrastructure, food systems and planetary health.
Featured Quotes
How Did You Become Interested in Microbiology?
I would go back to my time at Texas A&M University when I was an undergraduate. I was always very passionate about a healthy Earth, keeping the earth clean and trying to do what we can to be a good steward of our planet. So, I wanted to study soil remediation, and, because of that, I started working at a lab at the USDA in College Station Texas. There, I got introduced to the concept of microbes and plant pathology. And even though I started trying to learn about soils and soil chemistry, I really started to get passionate about what microbes are, what microbes can be.Being able to look through a microscope for the first time felt like having access to another world, another planet. And I have always been intrigued about what microbes are, what they can do, how versatile, how diverse they are. My career in microbiology started there, and I still, to this day, am amazed at everything that microbes can be and everything microbes can do. That's still where I find my passion.
Experience in Industry: Leading R&D For a Biotech Startup
As I was completing my Ph.D., I realized that I really wanted to be in an environment where I could run experiments, and then, based on those experiments, make decisions and impact my next step forward. I really wanted to be in a place where the work that I was doing was going to be immediately applied. That is what led me to make the decision that the next step for me was industry rather than continuing on an academic trajectory.I moved to the San Francisco Bay area. I met the founders of Boost Biomes. The company was started out of technology that was spun out of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab from Adam Arkins lab there at Lawrence Berkeley. And I was really excited when I met the founders and was able to speak to them about the work they were doing.
I felt like it was a really exciting project. It was a great opportunity for me to be able to bring a lot of my, quite varied, microbiology experience and apply it in 1 place. I would be able to work on environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, agriculture, which is something that I get very excited about, and also continue to work on molecular biology and microbial genetics.
We were taking naturally occurring microbial communities, and exploring them and developing them for live microbial products that could be applied in agriculture and in food. So, as you can imagine, being able to work in that area really allowed me to flex my different skills and my varied knowledge set, and that was something that I found to be just a good opportunity for me.
One other part that was exciting and new for me was learning how to scale up these products—understanding how the microbes grew, how we could produce the highest titers of each of these microbes so we could deploy them into field trials. That was something that was new to me. It helped me to understand that not only did we have to have exciting and innovative discoveries, but we also needed to be able to produce these into real products that were being delivered into the hands of farmers.
Any microbe that was discovered—any potential application that a microbe could have, or any phenotype that was of interest—at the end of the day, when you're developing a product, it has to be cost effective. It has to be a product that people will want to buy and will want to use.
From Soil to Space, Lessons From NASA
I was working in the group that was conducting environmental monitoring for the space program (2007-2010), and this was during the shuttle period. So, we were having to monitor water, water quality, water production, water maintenance for the space program, both the shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS), as well as air quality in any space that the crew inhabited. We also did surface monitoring.There was basically 2 sides to my job. One was around being a microbiology technician that was running environmental monitoring, processing samples, putting out reports on the quality of air/water surfaces as it pertains to the various areas we were sampling. And of course, our number one priority was ensuring that the astronauts never came into contact with anything pathogenic that could potentially result in any kind of infection—especially in a remote environment like space, where you might not have access to quick medical treatment.
The other part of my job was around designing experiments and testing technologies to improve how we were doing that environmental monitoring. That was a lot of developing molecular techniques, different kinds of testing and sample gathering for how we could improve our monitoring processes, beyond looking at the air and water quality that the astronauts were being exposed to in the shuttle or in the International Space Station.
ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Applied and Environmental Microbiology Unit
ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿has been a part of my career and my professional development since I started working in microbiology. I learned about ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿when I was an undergrad. I've published in ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿journals. I've attended ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿meetings. Likewise, I was involved in ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿when I was a scientist at Johnson Space Center during my graduate program. I received an ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿fellowship during my graduate training. So, I have a lot of respect for the legacy that ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿has and also the service I think ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿does for its members. So, when I first learned about this opportunity, I had to hear more.That gets us to the AEM unit, the Applied and Environmental Microbiology unit. Having spent time working in private industry, I started to see not only the opportunities around microbiology innovation and microbiology technologies, but also where there are challenges, where there are hurdles. And as I learned about the Applied Environmental Microbiology unit and what it could be, it made me excited to be able to be a voice for the people who do research under the various disciplines that fall in applied in environmental microbiology. It made me excited to be able to build a platform for the people who do research here; so that research and science can be shared; so that we can leverage the data that we already have, the findings that brilliant people have put forth to move micro technologies and innovation forward.
I've talked a lot about applying data, applying knowledge, applying technologies, and I think AEM can be a facilitator for that, and that makes me excited. Not only being able to work at an organization that I'm passionate about, like ASM, but also being able to hopefully build that platform for applied and environmental microbiology scientists, engineers, professionals, to come together to catalyze on the opportunities that are there.
The Applied and Environmental Microbiology unit is focused on real world applications. We want to address the challenges that we currently face around climate change, around managing water systems, around the management of land and soil, how we produce food and also bioenergy and bioproducts—making sure that we have sustainable alternatives for fuel and various materials.
The strength of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿is honestly its members. We are able to bring together, to convene experts across any microbial discipline that we are looking at, and not only the experts, but also people in various sectors—be that government or private industry—to identify opportunities, to identify challenges, and then to help foster the collaborations and partnerships that will help us overcome those hurdles and really push science forward.
Specific Opportunities
I think that we could be better at communicating with a general audience as a profession. Scientists are discovering new findings every day, just uncovering knowledge, and I think, being able to share that with a general audience to build support for the sciences, and also to build a knowledge base amongst the general society, is an opportunity that we have as a profession and something that ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿can facilitate.I will take that even further and say, beginning that line of communication between researchers and society at large has to be a 2 way street. Being able to receive feedback from a general audience about where there are problems, where microbes can be the solution to those problems or where an understanding of microbes can help us address those challenges—that is an opportunity for us.
Another place where I think there are opportunities, as it pertains to Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is advocating for scientific research to be able to help us move technologies forward in 2 ways:
- Advocating for funding for science, and simultaneously advocating for science education.
- Streamlining regulatory hurdles that would allow us to bring technologies to market or to a real world application quicker around the focus areas I mentioned: land management, water management, promoting climate health.
Links For This Episode
- Learn More About ASM’s Scientific Units.
- Join the Conversation on ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Connect, our online community platform.
- Browse Volunteer Opportunities.
- Become an ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿Member.
- Take the 
