https://oceanexpert.org/expert/56298

ORCID : 0000-0002-5456-2434

Doctor of Marine Sciences

Teaching/Education
Research

Biological Oceanography, Marine Ecology
Marine Biotechnology, Marine Products

Jordan Steven Ruiz-Toquica is a Colombian Marine Biologist specializing in microbiology and coral reef health. He holds a Master's degree in Microbiology from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and has recently completed his Ph.D. in Marine Sciences at Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, focusing on coral probiotics and microbiomes.

Throughout his career, Dr. Ruiz-Toquica has been dedicated to developing probiotic-based strategies to enhance coral resilience under environmental stress (Ruiz-Toquica et al., in prep). His research includes studying the microbiome dynamics of resilient coral species like Madracis auretenra (Ruiz-Toquica et al., in press).

His expertise encompasses microbiology and molecular biology techniques, including culture-based approaches and advanced sequencing methods such as Nanopore and Illumina sequencing.

In Fall 2024, Dr. Ruiz-Toquica joined the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in The Ushijima Lab. In this role, he contributes to developing probiotic treatments aimed at protecting corals from stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), as part of the Coral Disease Research and Probiotic (CORDAP) project titled "Giving Caribbean corals a future: SCTLD and the use of probiotics in coral restoration projects.

Dr. Ruiz-Toquica has also co-authored research on the potential of crustose coralline algae-associated bacteria to combat antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, highlighting his commitment to addressing global challenges in marine ecosystems (Lera-Lozano et al., under review).

Caribbean Sea

English
Spanish

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