{"id":27151,"date":"2025-11-19T17:43:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/?p=27151"},"modified":"2026-01-07T11:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:25:16","slug":"congratulations-to-our-new-phd-marissa-bivins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/congratulations-to-our-new-phd-marissa-bivins\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to our new PhD, Marissa Bivins!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Bivins successfully defended her thesis, “Evolution of Antimicrobial Resistance in N. Gonorrhoeae<\/em>: Balance Between Essential Function and Preventing Antibiotic Activity.” under the direction of her mentor, Dr. Rob Nicholas.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Marissa Bivins in her White Lab Coat after PhD defense<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Bivins will be joining the Skiba lab at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor as a Postdoctoral Researcher to investigate GPCR signaling in reproductive biology.<\/p>\n

Publications<\/h2>\n

Antibiotic-resistance mutations in penicillin-binding protein 2 from the ceftriaxone-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae<\/em> strain H041 strike a delicate balance between increasing resistance and maintaining transpeptidase activity.\u00a0<\/a> Marissa M. Bivins*<\/strong>, Joshua Tomberg*, Madeleine Bagshaw, Avinash Singh, Sandeepchowdary Bala, Christopher Davies, Robert A. Nicholas. bioRxiv\u00a02025.11.13.688206;\u00a0doi:\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2025.11.13.688206<\/a><\/p>\n

Metagenomics combined with activity-based proteomics point to gut bacterial enzymes that reactivate mycophenolate. <\/a>Simpson JB, Sekela JJ, Graboski AL, Borlandelli VB, Bivins MM,<\/strong> Barker NK, Sorgen AA, Mordant AL, Johnson RL, Bhatt AP, Fodor AA, Herring LE, Overkleeft H, Lee JR, Redinbo MR. Gut Microbes. 2022 Jan-Dec;14(1):2107289. doi: 10.1080\/19490976.2022.2107289<\/a>. PMID: 35953888 PMC9377255<\/a><\/p>\n

CIB1 depletion with docetaxel or TRAIL enhances triple-negative breast cancer cell death.<\/a>\u00a0Chung AH, Leisner TM, Dardis GJ, Bivins MM,<\/strong> Keller AL, Parise LV. Cancer Cell Int. 2019 Feb 4;19:26. doi: 10.1186\/s12935-019-0740-2<\/a>. eCollection 2019. PMID: 30740034 PMC6360800<\/a><\/p>\n

Structure, function, and inhibition of drug reactivating human gut microbial \u03b2-glucuronidases.<\/a>\u00a0Biernat KA, Pellock SJ, Bhatt AP, Bivins MM,<\/strong> Walton WG, Tran BNT, Wei L, Snider MC, Cesmat AP, Tripathy A, Erie DA, Redinbo MR. Sci Rep. 2019 Jan 29;9(1):825. doi: 10.1038\/s41598-018-36069-w<\/a>. PMID: 30696850 PMC6351562<\/a><\/p>\n

Structural Basis of Polyketide Synthase O-Methylation.<\/a> Skiba MA*, Bivins MM*,<\/strong> Schultz JR, Bernard SM, Fiers WD, Dan Q, Kulkarni S, Wipf P, Gerwick WH, Sherman DH, Aldrich CC, Smith JL. ACS Chem Biol. 2018 Dec 21;13(12):3221-3228. doi: 10.1021\/acschembio.8b00687<\/a>. Epub 2018 Dec 3. PMID: 30489068 PMC6470024<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Bivins’ bioRxiv paper (listed first) is also in submission at PLOS Pathogens. She is also third author on another paper currently in revision at ACS Biochemistry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Honors, Awards & Highlights<\/h2>\n

Pharmacological Sciences T32 Training Program Awardee (2019)<\/p>\n

UNC WinSPIRE Alumni Outreach Co-Chair (2020-2023)<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Marissa presents at her PhD Defensehe podium<\/div><\/div>
\"Dr.<\/a>
Henrik presents her PHCO White Lab Coat<\/div><\/div>
\"Dr.<\/a>
Congratulations, Dr. Bivins!<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

We wish you all the best, Marissa!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Bivins successfully defended her thesis, “Evolution of Antimicrobial Resistance in N. Gonorrhoeae: Balance Between Essential Function and Preventing Antibiotic Activity.” under the direction of her mentor, Dr. Rob Nicholas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22429,"featured_media":27158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-student-postdoc-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2025\/11\/Bivins-in-Lab-Coat-2025-250-3.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2025\/11\/Bivins-in-Lab-Coat-2025-250-3.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2025\/11\/Bivins-in-Lab-Coat-2025-250-3.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2025\/11\/Bivins-in-Lab-Coat-2025-250-3.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2025\/11\/Bivins-in-Lab-Coat-2025-250-3-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Dr. Marissa Bivins in her white Pharmacology Lab Coat at her White Coat ceremony after successfully defending her PhD thesis.","category_details":[{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/"},{"name":"Student & Postdoc News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/student-postdoc-news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27151"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27169,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151\/revisions\/27169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}