Microbiology

HIV-1 affects and kills millions of people globally, but not enough information exists regarding the types of cells that HIV-1 targets in different tissues or the virus’s mechanism of spreading throughout the body. Viruses often ride the body’s circulatory systems to scatter throughout an organism...

The University is hiring six or more tenure-track faculty studying microbial systems or microbiomes, coordinated hires that will expand interdisciplinary microbial research and education across campus.

Graduate student Colleen Bianco and Professor Carin Vanderpool spearheaded a study that centered on how E. coli and Salmonella bacteria use RNA-based regulatory mechanisms to modify their membrane lipids in response to different stimuli. Their findings, with collaborator Kathrin Frölich (Ludwig...

The latest paper by the Kuzminov lab investigates the mechanism of thymineless death, which is a common mode of action of anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs. The findings were published in a paper titled "Sources of thymidine and analogs fueling futile damage-repair cycles and ss-gap accumulation...

Microbiologist Ralph Wolfe contributed to a study of microbes that led to the discovery of a third superkingdom, or domain, of life: the archaea. Wolfe, a professor emeritus of microbiology at the University of Illinois, died March 26 in Urbana. He was 97.

The latest paper by the Kuzminov lab describes the development of a highly sensitive method to probe the nature of DNA replication in E. coli. The findings were published in a paper titled “Near-continuously synthesized leading strands in Escherichia coli are broken by ribonucleotide excision” in...

The latest paper by the Brooke lab investigates the mechanism through which an Influenza A-infected host cell can be rendered resistant to subsequent viral infections. The findings were published in a paper titled “Influenza A Virus Superinfection Potential Is Regulated by Viral Genomic...

Although oxidative stress is a chronic problem, life endures. To understand how oxidative stress damages cells and what their defense mechanisms are, the Imlay lab uses E. coli as a model organism.

Researchers report in a new study that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori – a major contributor to gastritis, ulcers and stomach cancer – resists the body’s immune defenses by shutting down energy production within the cells of the stomach lining that serve as a barrier to infection.

MCB Collaboration Unravels Bacteria’s Virulence Regulation System