Research Area: Microbiota and Microbiomes

Scott’s research investigates how endocrine signaling networks regulate animals’ physiological responses to pathogenic microbes. He uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a genetically tractable model to investigate the mechanisms by which several key insect hormones and their cognate nuclear receptors both directly and indirectly[...]

The Kim Lab focuses on the general fields of population genetics and evolutionary biology. Dr. Kim is interested in computational problems relevant to understanding evolutionary processes and population dynamics, and in development and application of statistical methods for inference from genetic data. In addition to[...]

We study the transmission and impacts of infectious disease in a changing ocean and mechanisms of immune function in marine invertebrates. We work to identify the value of intact ocean biodiversity and develop strategies towards a healthier ocean.

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[...]

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[...]

The Feaga lab is focused on how bacteria maintain protein synthesis capacity under stress. We aim to identify factors that interact with the ribosome and prevent stalling, and to understand the impact of ribosome stalling on cell physiology. In particular, we are interested in how[...]

Janelle’s research project aims to understand how diet affects the microbiome, and how these diet-dependent microbiome changes affect the immune system- particularly CD8+ T cells. Her work also uses flow cytometry and sequencing to look at how diet and microbiome changes in early life affects[...]

Fungi are responsible for devastating crop infestations that threaten global food supplies and diseases that result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. We use genetic and genomic techniques spanning from classical molecular biology to high-throughput functional genomics to understand how[...]

Macrophages are susceptible to HIV-1 infection and are resistant to virally-induced cell death. Alveolar macrophages (AM) in particular are known to be extremely long-lived and self-renewing, and have been shown to be both permissive to HIV-1 infection and persist in the face of Anti-Retroviral Therapy[...]

Iris explores the ways that vertebrate hosts cope with infections from the diverse community of parasites they encounter throughout their lives. Specifically, she looks at signatures of selection on the immune genes of lizards, and correlate those signatures with the lizard’s parasite community. Iris is[...]