Microbiology Graduate Program Faculty

§ Department of Veterinary Science and Microbiology

Dr. Stephen Billington: Molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis, including toxin structure:function. Mechanisms of antimicrobial resiance in commensal bacteria.

Dr. Jim Collins: Surveillance and diagnosis of virus disease; Herpesvirus infections of ruminants.

Dr. Lynn Joens: Pathogenesis and immunology of porcine intestinal diseases.

Dr. B. Helen Jost: Bacterial adhesion to the host, with a specific emphasis on Arcanobacterium spp.-host cell interactions. Role of membrane-active, bacterial toxins in disease pathogenesis.

Dr. Donald Lightner: My research interests center on infectious diseases of farmed aquatic species, especially the viral diseases of the penaeid shrimp, and on the development of classical and molecular methods for their diagnosis.

Dr. Sadhana Ravishanker: Stress response in foodborne pathogenic bacteria. Control of foodborne pathogenic bacteria using thermal and non-thermal technology, and multiple hurdle approach. Natural antimicrobials.

Dr. Michael Riggs: My research interests center on the immunobiology and molecular pathogenesis of parasitic protozoal diseases of zoonotic importance. Current research is focused on development of recombinant and synthetic vaccines for cryptosporidiosis; immunotherapy of cryptosporidiosis; definition of the molecular pathogenesis of host cell recognition, attachment, and invasion by Cryptosporidium parvum; structural characterization of C. parvum glycoprotein ligands; animal model development; and improved methods for diagnosis and detection.

Dr. Ornella Selmin: Molecular mechanisms of congenital heart defects, cellular pathways involved in toxicity associated with exposure to environmental contaminants, including alteration of gene expression, nucleic acid regulation, and protein modification.

Dr. J. Glenn Songer: Molecular pathogenesis and diagnosis of clostridial enteritis.

Dr. Charles Sterling: My research interests involved cryptosporidiosis in the immunologically naive and immunocompromised animal; monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies in diagnostic parasitology and immunotherapy; cysticercosis; epidemiology and immunology of Giardia, Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora infections.

§ Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Dr. Harris Bernstein: My major research emphasis is gastrointestinal cancer, with a focus on colon cancer, and the role of bile acids in the progression of this cancer. Intestinal microbial flora play a key role in intestinal cancer, both in promoting inflammation, an early step in cancer progression, and by deconjugating primary bile acids to the more cancer-promoting secondary bile acids.

Dr. Priscilla Schaffer: Regulation of herpes simplex virus (HSV) gene expression with emphasis on the roles of viral immediate early proteins in productive infection; reactivation of HSV from neuronal latency; origin-dependent viral DNA replication.

§ Department of Immunobiology

Dr. Nafees Ahmad: The main focus of my laboratory is understanding the molecular mechanisms of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) vertical transmission and pathogenesis of pediatric AIDS (HIV-1 infection in children).

Dr. Jorge A. Girón: The research in my laboratory focuses on the structure-function of adherence factors of pathogenic bacteria including, enteropathogenic, enterotoxigenic, enteroaggregative, and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli. We are also studying flagellins of Vibrio cholerae as potent inducers of proinflammatory molecules. Understanding how bacterial pathogens interact with host epithelial cells is a key question to develop new strategies for prevention of infectious diseases. Further, the molecular signals triggered in mammalian cells in response to bacterial adherence and colonization is central to understand the molecular cross-talk between bacteria and host cells.

Dr. Felicia Goodrum: Elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that control human cytomegalovirus (CMV) latency and reactivation from primary human hematopoietic cells. We have recently identified the first viral determinants that function to promote CMV latency. We are currently working to elucidate the mechanism by which these determinants contribute to the latent infection, which will contribute to our understanding of CMV pathogenesis and the development of new, targeted antiviral therapies.

Dr. Richard Friedman: Interaction of PMN's and macrophages with bacteria; molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and the role of exotoxins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Bordetella pertussis.

Dr. Maggie So: We focus on two microorganisms, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Neisseria meningitidis, and the role their Type IV pili play in infection. During attachment, Type IV pili send physical and chemical signals into the cell, initiating a multi-dimensional communication system between the bacterium and the host, and activating signaling pathways that reduce cytoxicity. Using cell biology, biochemistry and (with our collaborators) biophysics techniques, we seek to define the components of this Type IV pilus-based communication system and the biological consequences that result from it.

§ Department of Plant Sciences, Division of Plant Pathology and Microbiology

Dr. Judith Brown: (1) Worldwide diversity and diversification of the emerging genus, Begomovirus (family Geminiviridae), (2) biotype/haplotype differentiation, phylogeography of the Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) complex (Aleyrodidae), (3) whitefly genomic/proteomics-identification of whitefly genes involved in vector-mediated virus transmission, and (4) transgenic resistance/gene silencing.

Dr. Peter Cotty: Our research is directed at developing solutions to aflatoxin problems through both practical field based studies and fundamental investigations into the physiology, genetics, and biology of aflatoxin producing fungi. Fundamental aspects include regulation of aflatoxin biosynthesis and it's interaction with morphogenesis, divergence of aflatoxin producing fungi, hydrolase production by aflatoxin producers, identification of adaptive fungal characters, characterization of host-fungal interactions that dictate extent of contamination, epidemiology of aflatoxin contamination, and population biology of aflatoxin producers.

Dr. Bentley Fane: The broad objective of our research program is to elucidate the mechanisms involved in scaffolding-mediated and genome-mediate morphogenesis within the Microviridae system. In addition, we are also beginning to examine the biology of viruses which infect obligate intracellular parasitic bacteria.

Dr. Scott Kroken: The research in my lab focuses on the mechanisms by which symbiotic and pathogenic fungi have evolved with their host organisms. Current projects include comparative genomics of euascomcyete fungi in response to their symbiotic hosts and evolution of pathogenicity factors and conditionally dispensable chromosomes in the plant pathogen Nectria haematococca MPVI.

Dr. Marc Orbach: My research program uses Magnaporthe grisea, the fungal pathogen responsible for the rice blast disease, as a model system to study host-pathogen interactions at the molecular and biochemical level. We study genome variation in M. grisea at the whole genome level using electrophoretic karyotyping methods. We are also specifically analyzing the role that a transposable element may play in genome variation and the high rate of mutation observed at some loci.

Dr. L. Sandy Pierson III: Roles and regulation of bacterial secondary metabolites such as phenazine antibiotics in Pseudomonas chlororaphis (aureofaciens) strain 30-84, free-living root-associated bacterium. Molecular analysis of Pseudomonas fluorescens strain Pf-5, a rhizosphere colonizing bacterium of many plants, which is a biological control agent, suppressing a number of plant diseases caused by soil-borne plant pathogens. Microbial community analysis in Kartchner Caverns, AZ.

§ Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science

Dr. Charles Gerba: Environmental microbiology, gene probes, water reuse, biocolloid transport in subsurfaces, virology, parasitology, risk assessment.

Dr. Raina Maier: Microbial community structure, diversity, and survival in extreme environments, biological fate of organic and metal contaminants in the environment, discovery of new microbial surfactants (biosurfactants) and development of biomedical and environmental applications.

Dr. Ian Pepper: Using indigenous bacteria to degrade organic contaminants in soils, and augmenting the genes of microbes to make them resistant to the toxic effects of cadmium and arsenic.

Dr. Chris Rensing: Environmental microbiology, structure and function of metal transport proteins.

§ Office of Arid Lands Studies

Dr. Istvan Molnar: My research focus is on the application of modern microbiology, microbial genetics and genomics to drug discovery by manipulating bacterial secondary metabolism for pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical industrial applications.

Updated February 26, 2008
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