People

Roles: Faculty, 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

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

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, 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.

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

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

The Schmidt lab focuses on microbial community diversity, metabolic activity, and genome evolution in aquatic environments. Students will gain experience with microbial ecology and computational tools. As an example project, students can characterize the microbial communities in marine sediments associated with oyster beds to understand the impact of oyster farming. Climate change dramatically impacts freshwater ecosystems, which are becoming warmer, more acidic, and nutrient rich. The collective influence of the microbial inhabitants of these ecosystems, despite their tiny size, can have an immense impact on water quality. However, we lack fundamental knowledge on the ecology and evolution of these aquatic microbial systems. Research in the lab focuses on how aquatic environments and microhabitats influence microbial community diversity, composition, metabolic activity, and genome evolution. To address these topics, our lab uses a combination of field work, molecular methods, and computational tools.  

Roles: Faculty

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

Our research is directed at characterizing structures and biological function of biogenic small molecules (BSMs) that regulate development and immune responses in plants and animals and serve important functions with associated microbiota. Using comparative metabolomic approaches we have engaged in a comprehensive effort to characterize structures and functions of all BSMs (more than 20,000 small molecules) produced by the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, with a specific cofus on signaling molecules that regulate organismal development and interactions with microbiota.

Roles: Faculty

Research Areas: Animal Hosts, Bacteria, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Fungi, Veterinary/Clinical Research, Viruses

My research group focuses on free-ranging North America wildlife to improve health outcomes across a variety of species, their pathogens and parasites.  At the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab, we derive solutions from novel mathematical applications, innovative diagnostic evaluations, field-based studies, and human dimensions of wildlife diseases.

Roles: Faculty

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

Two main areas of study in the Smart lab include identifying genes in bacterial pathogens that enable movement within a plant, and understanding the population diversity of rapidly reproducing oomycete pathogens. These studies enhance our knowledge of pathogen virulence determinants and further elucidate how plants recognize and respond to pathogens.

Roles: Faculty, Potential Postdoc Mentor, Potential Undergraduate Mentor

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

The unifying themes of my ongoing research program are seeking to understand the underlying mechanisms that control the pathogenesis and disease associated with bacterial infections, as well as developing control strategies for the bacteria or its associated disease. The main focus for the past years as an independent scientist was on the Salmonella A2B5 toxins: biology, pathogenesis, and neutralization. Built on this successful and productive experience in the field of host-pathogen interactions, my research program is expanding based on the current public health demand with an emphasis on advancing our understanding that would help tackle public health threats associated with drug-resistance and drug-tolerance of bacteria. My group has a track record of properly using approaches integrating bacterial genetics, biochemistry, glycobiology, cell biology, immunology, structural biology, and animal models to decipher the interactions between the host and bacterial pathogens. My research expertise is in glycoconjugates in the host-microbe interactions, bacterial AB toxins, bacterial adaptation to the host and host cells, bacterial virulence & persistence, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines & monoclonal antibodies.

Roles: Faculty

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

Dan’s research focuses on the assembly and transmission of host-associated microbial communities. He is interested in understanding where your microbiota comes from in early life, how microbes are transmitted between hosts, and the ecological and evolutionary forces that shape these microbial communities as they develop into a stable and resilient ecological system.