People

Roles: Faculty Investigator

Research Areas: Agriculture Research, Fungi, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Plant Hosts

We study disease resistance in maize and sorghum with a substantial focus on fungal pathogens that produce toxins and cause large-scale food system contamination. We work at scales ranging from a single nucleotide (which genetic variations provide quantitative resistance) to whole-plant phenotypes (looking at tradeoffs between resistance mechanisms and other traits) to agroecologies (what environmental factors lead to plant stresses associated with mycotoxin outbreaks).

Roles: Faculty Investigator, Potential Postdoc Mentor

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Viruses

The Parker lab uses the mammalian orthoreovirus model system and other human viruses to study virus-host interactions at the molecular and cellular level. Current projects are focused on the mechanisms viruses use to overcome translational repression and optimize translation of viral mRNAs, as well as pathogenesis studies to understand the transcriptional response of infected tissues to viral infection.

Roles: Faculty Investigator

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Microbiota and Microbiomes, Veterinary/Clinical Research, Viruses

My laboratory studies viruses, with a particular focus on viruses that have jumped into new hosts to cause epidemics of disease. One model we study is canine parvovirus, which is a cat virus that transferred into dogs in the mid-1970s and subsequently caused a global pandemic of disease. Other viruses we study are the H3N8 and H3N2 canine influenza viruses, which transferred from horses or birds to dogs. Both caused an epidemic of canine disease for at least 15 years. Our work is defining the principles that underlie successful viral emergence, including risk factors associated with origins of new viruses in humans.

Roles: Faculty Investigator, Potential MFF (REU) Host, Potential Postdoc Mentor, Potential Undergraduate Mentor

Research Areas: Agriculture Research, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Fungi, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Microbiota and Microbiomes, Plant Hosts

We study the mechanisms underlying ecological interactions between fungi and bacteria.  Student projects will focus on current work to characterize the bacteria associated with mycorrhizal fungi in poorly studied desert habitats in California and Israel. Students will learn culture and microscopy techniques, and phylogenetic analysis.

Roles: Faculty Investigator, Potential MFF (REU) Host, Potential Undergraduate Mentor

Research Areas: Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Microbiota and Microbiomes, Viruses

The Peters lab studies microbial evolution via mobile genetic elements. We are interested in how mobile elements evolve new functions within host-associated bacteria. Students in the lab will develop skills in bioinformatics, molecular genetics, and biochemistry. An example student project is using sequencing data to characterize insertion sites of a transposon across a bacterial genome.

Roles: Faculty Investigator, Potential MFF (REU) Host, Potential Postdoc Mentor, Potential Undergraduate Mentor

Research Areas: Microbiota and Microbiomes, Veterinary/Clinical Research

The Poole Lab studies how factors like substrate availability and host genes influence the dynamics of symbiotic oral and gut microbial communities. Students will conduct in vitro studies on saliva samples to characterize the response of microbes to a panel of carbohydrate substrates. They will use bioinformatics to connect microbial community changes to host genetics.

Roles: Faculty Investigator

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Microbiota and Microbiomes, Viruses

The Rudd lab is interested in how microbes alter immune development and how the adaptive immune system protects the host against acute and chronic pathogens.

Roles: Faculty Investigator

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Microbiota and Microbiomes, Veterinary/Clinical Research, Viruses

My program is focused on drug discovery and the pathogenesis of infectious human disease. We work closely with the Gates Foundation and the California Institute for Biomedical Research to run high-throughput drug screening on Mycobacterium tuberculosis within the context of the host. We also have human subjects research programs in Malawi and South Africa that explore TB and HIV infections supported by the NIH and the Gates Foundation.

Roles: Faculty Investigator

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Microbiota and Microbiomes

Research in my lab probes the environmental, structural and physiological basis of bacterial survival. The majority of earth’s microbes exist in a non-growing, surival state, making it important to better understand the mechanisms underpinning this physiological state. We primarily use the environmental zoonotic pathogen, Coxiella burnetii (causative agent of Q fever), to explore questions central to long-term environmental stability and spore-like resistance; characteristics at the root of the pathogen’s ability to transmit disease. To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we will dive deep into the structural abyss of the C. burnetii cell envelope. This intricate structure acts as both a barrier and a molecular switchboard for the bacterium by connecting environmental signals to the response circuitry within the bacterial cell. We suspect that modifications to this structure reinforce barrier function, limit external signal input, and enable long-term survival of the pathogen. Lucky for us, the developmental biology of C. burnetii and its irrepressible spirit, make this sleeping beauty an attractive model to explore the phenomenon of bacterial survival.

Roles: Faculty Investigator, Potential Undergraduate Mentor

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, Genomics and Cell Biology of Infection, Veterinary/Clinical Research, Viruses

Dr. Schang uses small molecules with drug-like properties to probe the ways viruses cause infections. He is most interested in finding common features among the many viruses that cause disease in animals or humans, including how they enter cells and how they replicate and cause disease. He is also uncovering important information on how to use only a few drugs to fight infections with many different viruses, or even stop them before they start.