Brittany Belin

Assistant Professor

Dr. Brittany Belin received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, where she pursued research with Dr. Holly Goodson, and completed her Ph.D. in biophysics at the University of California San Francisco under the mentorship of (UK alum!) Dr. Dyche Mullins. In 2015 she began to study plant-bacteria symbiosis as a post-doc in the laboratory of Dr. Dianne Newman at Caltech. Brittany's independent laboratory opened at the Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Embryology, located on the Johns Hopkins University campus, in August 2020. Following the closure of the Embryology Department in the summer of 2026, Brittany and her laboratory relocated to the University of Kentucky Department of Biology.

Contact Information

b.belin@uky.edu

355A T.H. Morgan

Education

B.S., Biochemistry & Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 2007
Ph.D., Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, 2014

Research Interests

Bacteriology
Cell biology
Membrane Biology
Plant-Microbe Symbiosis
Computational Biology
Biophysics
Geomicrobiology

Affiliations

Biology
Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Research Interests

The Belin lab is an interdisciplinary team of microbiologists who study the cell biology of soil bacteria and their associations with plants. The team focuses on understanding beneficial bacteria known as bradyrhizobia, which promote the growth of soybeans, peanuts, and other legumes by nitrogen fertilization. Current work in the Belin lab examines how lipids in the bradyrhizobium membrane impact communication and survival in soil and in association with plants. Learn more about the laboratory and current projects at http://www.belinlab.org

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Lawrence, E.C., Ollikainen, N., Pan, H., Belin, B.J. 2026. Origin and transport of bacterial hopanoids. mSystems 0:e00619-26. https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00619-26
Lubin, M., Teixeira, D., Belin, B.J. 2026. Characterization of chemotaxis in soybean symbiont Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens. Appl Environ Microbiol 92:e00928-26. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.00928-26
Carlew, T.S., Atherton, A.A., Shim, A.M., Parada Rojas, C., Buchanan, R.A., Chang, J., Sachs, J. L, Belin, B.J. 2026. Aeschynomene americana induces terminal bacteroid differentiation in Bradyrhizobium sp. USDA3516, a novel model for dalbergioid-rhizobium symbiosis. BMC Plant Biol 26, 1235. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-026-08893-0
Pan, H., Shim, A.M., Lubin, M.B., Belin, B.J. 2024. Hopanoid lipids are required for efficient soybean-Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens symbiosis. mBio. 15(4):e0247823. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02478-23
Mitchison-Field, L.M.Y., Belin, B.J. 2023. Bacterial lipid biophysics and membrane organization. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 74:102315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mib.2023.102315

See all of Dr. Belin's publications at Google Scholar