We are pleased to welcome four outstanding faculty speakers.
Lesley Campbell
Professor, Environmental Biology
Low Hanging Fruit: Research to support smart environmentally controlled agriculture
Plants have preferences about the environment in which they live that range from picky perspectives on their ambient air temperature, the speed of the wind on their leaves, the amount or type of nutrients they consume, and the amount of light they receive. But how do we actually learn what they like? And what can we do with the information once we learn about their preferences? I will share how the Campbell lab collects diverse kinds of data and then how our models and analyses allow us to apply our measurement approaches to feeding the world.
Daniel Foucher
Professor, Chemistry
Designer Antimicrobials: A Smarter Way to Kill Pathogenic Organisms
My group is actively researching chemistry in four select and industrially relevant industries: this includes work on the preparation of stable, conducting polymers of Tin that could be 3D printed and used in flexible electronic devices. We collaborate in the exploration of decomposable biorenewables as feedstock replacements for oil-based polymers, in work lead by Dr. Guerino Sacripante. Additionally, we have launched a new project collaboratively with Dr. Darrick Heyd on the preparation of rapid cure formulations of epoxy resins for use in high voltage electrical systems. Finally, our work in the area of graftable antimicrobial materials for plastic, glass, textiles and metals has led to the filing of several patents and publications. The latter work is carried out collaboratively with the Wolfaardt group lies at the interface of chemistry and microbiology and involves extensive microbiological method development and testing of treated samples.
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Mojca Mattiazzi Usaj
Assistant Professor, Cell & Molecular Biology
Analyzing phenotypic heterogeneity with high-content screening
Dr. Mojca Mattiazzi Usaj’s research program focuses on understanding the mechanisms that translate genotype into phenotype, and the causes and consequences of phenotypic heterogeneity. Of particular interest are the effects of aging and other non-genetic sources on cellular heterogeneity, endocytic trafficking and organelle function. The research group is developing and applying high-throughput microscopy and machine learning-based high-content image analysis pipelines for advancing single-cell biology.
Dustin Little
Assistant Professor, Cell & Molecular Biology
Sorting the Arsenal: Hierarchal Secretion of Type III Secretion System Effectors
The Little lab is broadly interested in the mechanisms that facilitate host-pathogen interactions during infection. As humanity is currently in the era of antimicrobial resistance, there is an urgent need to develop new strategies to combat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, and targeting key host-pathogen interaction could lead to novel virulence targets for the development of antimicrobial disruption strategies. Specifically, that lab is focused on three key areas of investigation: 1) Understanding how bacterial infect and hijack host cells using the type III secretion system, 2) Determining the role bacterial surface glycans play in host-pathogen interactions, such as lipopolysaccharide, and 3) the role bacterial tyrosine phosphorylation plays in regulating these two key virulence determinants. Notwithstanding our interest in bacterial virulence mechanisms, the Little lab is also interested in producing and engineering recombinant proteins for use as probes or detection reagents for molecular diagnostics – with a recent focus on in the development of a paperfluidic device that can detect neutralizing antibodies for SARS-CoV-2.