Michael Manhart

Michael Manhart is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rutgers University's School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Graduate Faculty. He leads the Quantitative Evolutionary Microbiology (QEM) Laboratory based at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM), with affiliations to the Rutgers University Microbiome Program.

Dr. Manhart's research integrates laboratory experiments, computational modeling, and data analysis to investigate fundamental principles of microbial growth, interactions, and evolution. His work spans microbial ecology, cell physiology, and evolutionary dynamics, with applications in human health and environmental systems. Key methodologies include quantitative approaches to study mutant fitness, intercellular interactions, and evolutionary repeatability in pathogenic organisms.

The QEM Lab secured a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant in August 2025 for research on bacterial intercellular interactions and mutant fitness, alongside ongoing Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) funding for studies on evolutionary repeatability in Candida yeasts. Dr. Manhart actively mentors PhD students including Smruti (joined May 2025), Duhita (ASM award recipient), Rachana, Atharv (biotech hackathon winner), and Ernesto, who present at major conferences like ASM Microbe and GRC.

Current collaborations include partnerships with Dr. Daniel Charlebois and Dr. Meike Wortel at the University of Alberta, with recent joint meetings in July 2025. The laboratory focuses on developing predictive models for microbial community dynamics, antimicrobial resistance, and microbiome engineering through experimental and computational approaches.