Christopher Packey (Sartor lab) is currently a Gastroenterology and Hepatology Clinical Fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His dissertation title was “Disruption of complex enteric microbial communities and their mutualistic functions with the host contributes to the severity of common intestinal disorders and serves as a promising therapeutic target.” Lydia Roberts (Frelinger lab) completed … Read more

Rodrigo Gonzalez (Miller lab) successfully defended his dissertation in March 2014. Rodrigo’s research focused on understanding the earliest events that occur in the host after inoculation of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis. In particular he was interested in identifying the mode of trafficking of Y. pestis from the inoculation site to the draining lymph node, … Read more

23 M&I graduate students completed their PhD work during this past academic year and are eligible to participate in the doctoral hooding ceremony at the Dean Smith Center on May 10. Below are short summaries of their doctoral work and current activities/plans. Melissa Anderson (Cotter lab) successfully defended her dissertation in August 2013. She showed … Read more

PLOS Pathogens features a new study from the Peggy Cotter’s group, who have been modeling bacterial inter-strain competition with Burkholderia. Their article on the role of contact-dependent inhibition in microbial biofilm communities is at the link below. Kind Discrimination and Competitive Exclusion Mediated by…

The UNC Graduate School has just announced that Kari Debbink, who did her graduate work in Ralph Baric’s lab, is one of the winners of the 2014 Impact Awards. The Impact Awards recognize outstanding graduate students in a wide variety of research areas and are privately funded each year through the Graduate Education Advancement Board. … Read more

A UNC News feature on M&I Professor Bruce Cairns, candidate for UNC Faculty Chair; see the article at the link below. Voting faculty will have the opportunity to choose Bruce during an online election this week, and you can refer to a voter’s guide (http://tinyurl.com/mucvv6o) with summaries of UNC committee candidates, including M&I’s Kristina Abel … Read more

In vitro and in vivo model systems of respiratory syncytial virus infection are featured in a new article from the lab of Ray Pickles. M&I postdoc Rachael Liesman is the lead author of this study that appears in the April issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation (http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72948) See the UNC News article at the … Read more

Recognizing the limitations associated with current chimeric human-murine liver mouse models for studying hepatitis B virus infection and immunity, Lishan Su’s group has developed a humanized mouse with both human immune system and liver cells. See their new PLOS Pathogens article at the link below. http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1004032

An engaging interview with M&I faculty member Rita Tamayo, talking about choices in her life, creativity and science, and her research on Vibrio cholerae and Clostridium difficile. See the “Five Questions” article by Mark Derewicz at the link below.   Breaking Down Bacteria

The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), just announced that M&I Professor Ron Swanstrom (http://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/faculty/virology/ronald-i-swanstrom-ph-d) has been elected as one of the 2014 Fellows. Selection for fellowship is a highly competitive annual peer review process, based on scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced … Read more