working in the lab
working at lab bench
researching looking at petri dish
student with pipet

Welcome to the Delgado Vela lab!

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Lab Group- Spring 2026
Spring 2026 group

We focus on leveraging environmental biotechnology to improve environmental health. Our group integrates molecular tools, bioinformatics, and modeling to understand microbial community interactions and dynamics. We are particularly interested in microbial interactions within biofilm systems and understanding how molecular communication signals are used in environmental microbial communities. Our work spans several systems including wastewater settings, the built environment (particularly hospital settings), and estuarine environments.