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The special character of our department is reflected in our ability to ask and answer questions of biological & clinical relevance, the ease with which issues are addressed across disciplinary lines, and the enthusiasm with which we approach research, education, and training.

Research programs in our department form a continuum of studies ranging from immunology to DNA sequence organization; from bioinformatics to epidemiology; from pathogenic mechanisms to vaccine development. Our faculty are unified through interests in the host-microbe interface and the desire to understand the complex nature of normal and disease processes in both humans and model organisms. Molecular biology is the common language that unites our various studies. Students and postdoctoral fellows in our department are trained in this atmosphere, and become extremely competent and comfortable using the paradigms of molecular biology and genetics to probe significant biological issues relevant to prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses.

The research interests of the Department overlap significantly with other programs on campus, and many members of our faculty are affiliated with these programs. We have important and close interactions with the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Cystic Fibrosis Research Center, the Thurston Arthritis Center, the Neuroscience Center, the Center for AIDS Research, the Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease, and the Center for Infectious Diseases. These various levels of integration provide an extraordinarily stimulating environment for the predoctoral students, and postdoctoral fellows.

We are at an exciting point in the fields of Microbiology and Immunology. We have powerful research tools provided by modern molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, genomics, and bioinformatics. As a result, we have a broad biological scope in which to operate and the ability to intensively investigate and solve many fundamental problems in the biomedical sciences.