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Microbiology

In Memoriam: Microbiologist Dixie Whitt

Dr. Dixie Whitt, a longtime University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign microbiologist who was beloved by her students and colleagues, passed away on Aug. 19, 2023, in Urbana. As a faculty member with the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana and the Department of Microbiology, she...

Professors Chris Brooke and Erik Nelson selected as Emerging Research Leaders

Two faculty members in the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology have been selected as Emerging Research Leaders by the University of Illinois Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute. 

MCB faculty awarded named scholar appointments

The College of LAS has awarded more than 25 professors, including three from the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology, with named scholar positions for their contributions to education and research at the University of Illinois. 

New research challenges longstanding assumptions of evolutionary metal preferences 

Thomas Kehl-Fie, a professor of microbiology in the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology, and collaborator Kevin Waldron, a professor at the Institute of Biochemistry & Biophysics in Warsaw, Poland, have found that have found that in response to the immune system restricting metal...

Rachel J. Whitaker named Harry E. Preble Professor

For Rachel J. Whitaker, life tends to feel like it’s all hands on deck.  Whitaker, a professor of microbiology, spends much of her time researching the evolution of archaea, bacteria, and viruses in the natural and clinical world—so...

Researchers make new insights into bacterial cell cycle

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Bacteriology, the Mera Lab focused on how the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus coordinates the replication and separation of the chromosome simultaneously. The researchers found that the regulators of those two crucial events communicate with each other...

Antibiotics vs Microbes: Wilson’s New Book Investigates Our War Against Pathogens

In Revenge of the Microbes: How Bacterial Resistance is Undermining the Antibiotic Miracle, University of Illinois professor of microbiology Brenda Wilson and co-author Brian Ho provide timely and in-depth information and analysis of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of superbugs. In...

Researchers shed new light on how copper poisons microbes

Copper is deployed by our immune system to fight off pathogens and is also used in health care settings to stave off bacterial infections, but how the element does so is unclear. Now, research published in Molecular Microbiology by microbiologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign...

Wind-chill out! Researchers discover how flow stresses out bacterial pathogens

Researchers have discovered the addition of fluid to human pathogens triggers a "windchill-like" effect that sensitizes cells to hydrogen peroxide, a well-known agent of cell stress and DNA damage. Their findings have been published in PNAS.

Researchers elucidate a fundamental physiological response required for Salmonella survival in the host

In a new paper published in mBio, researchers in the Department of Microbiology show that polyamines are critical for adaptation of salmonella to low magnesium conditions, including those found in the macrophage phagosome. Salmonella are major food-borne pathogens...