Molecular and Cellular Microbiology
Name
Research Areas
Contact
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Nikta Fakhri
Thomas D. & Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor of Physics617-324-6727Short Bio
Nikta is the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at MIT and Physics of Living Systems Group. She completed her undergraduate degree at Sharif University of Technology and her PhD at Rice University. She was a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany before joining MIT. Nikta is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. She is the recipient of the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Biological Physics and the 2019 NSF CAREER Award.
Photo credit by Steph Stevens
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Gregory Fournier
Associate Professor of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Science617-324-6164Short Bio
Greg Fournier is an expert in molecular phylogenetics and microbial evolution. His research investigates the geobiological context for the complex evolutionary histories of genes involved in “horizontal gene transfer” or HGT, the early evolution of microbial systems and metabolisms, and how these processes have shaped the biogeochemistry and habitability of the planet.
His research accomplishments span many eras of Earth’s history, including the identification of the HGT origin of new methane-producing metabolisms at a time closely linked with the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, discovering gene histories showing oxygen-dependent sterol biosynthesis evolved in the ancestors of eukaryotes over 2 billion years ago, and developing new HGT-based approaches for dating the origin of microbial groups and metabolisms, including methanogenesis and oxygenic photosynthesis. His current work focuses on expanding HGT-based molecular clocks to obtain a comprehensive, precise dating of the microbial Tree of Life, as well as focused studies on the evolution of major groups of cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and microbes involved in the nitrogen cycle and the consumption of animal-derived organic materials.
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Ariel Furst
Raymond (1921) & Helen St. Laurent Career Development Professor of Chemical Engineering617-253-4677Short Bio
Ariel L. Furst received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Chicago working with Prof. Stephen B. H. Kent on the chemical synthesis of proteins. She then completed her Ph.D. in the lab of Prof. Jacqueline K. Barton at the California Institute of Technology developing new cancer diagnostic strategies based on DNA charge transport. She was then an A. O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Matthew Francis at the University of California, Berkeley. She is now an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT. She is passionate about STEM outreach and increasing participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.
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Jeff Gore
Latham Family Career Development Associate Professor of PhysicsShort Bio
Jeff’s research interests have ranged widely, from the current focus on ecological dynamics to his single-molecule research in graduate school with the Bustamante laboratory. Before starting his own lab, Jeff was a Pappalardo Fellow in the Physics Department at MIT working with the van Oudenaarden laboratory studying cooperation and cheating in yeast.
Jeff’s honors include a Schmidt Science Polymath Award, NIH New Innovator Award, NIH K99/R00 Pathways to Independence Award, and an NSF CAREER Award. In addition, Jeff is a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Sloan Research Fellow, and an Allen Distinguished Investigator. He has also been recognized at MIT for his efforts in teaching and mentoring; in 2011 he was chosen as the MIT-wide undergraduate research (UROP) mentor of the year and in 2013 he received the Buechner Teaching Award from the Physics Department.
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Alan D. Grossman
Praecis Professor of BiologyShort Bio
Professor Alan Grossman is no longer accepting graduate students.
We use a variety of approaches to investigate several of the fundamental and conserved processes used by bacteria for propagation and growth, adaptation to stresses, and acquisition of new genes and traits via horizontal gene transfer. Our long term goals are to understand many of the molecular mechanisms and regulation underlying basic cellular processes in bacteria. Our organism of choice for these studies is usually the Gram positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Our current efforts are focused in two important areas of biology: 1) The control of horizontal gene transfer, specifically the lifecycle, function, and control of integrative and conjugative elements (ICEs). These elements are widespread in bacteria and contribute greatly to the spread of antibiotic resistances between organisms. 2) Regulation of the initiation of DNA replication and the connections between replication and gene expression, with particular focus on the conserved replication initiator and transcription factor DnaA. This work is directly related to mechanisms controlling bacterial growth, survival, and stress responses.
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Kristala L. Jones Prather
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering; Arthur Dehon Little Professor, Department Executive Officer617-253-1950Short Bio
Chemical engineering is the perfect backdrop for our research. We engineer microbes to produce chemical compounds. Some may look at this and think biology, but if you were able to peer inside a cell, you’d witness thousands of chemical reactions inside a microbial chemical factory.
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Laura L. Kiessling
Novartis Professor of Chemistry617-258-8567Short Bio
Professor Kiessling received an Sc.B. degree in chemistry at MIT, where she performed undergraduate research in organic synthesis with Professor Bill Roush. She received a Ph.D. degree in chemistry at Yale University for her research with Stuart L. Schreiber. She was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow with Peter B. Dervan at California Institute of Technology. She then joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she became the Steenbock Professor of Chemistry, the Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry, and the Director of the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics. In 2017, she returned to MIT as the Novartis Professor of Chemistry.
Professor Kiessling is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Philosophical Society, and National Academy of Sciences. She is the founding Editor-In-Chief of the journal ACS Chemical Biology . She is an author of over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles, and an inventor on more than 28 US patents. She has advised approximately 100 graduate students and postdoctorates. Alumni from her research group are contributing through their positions as faculty members of distinguished research universities, medical schools, and colleges and as research scientists at innovative start-up companies, leading corporations, and government laboratories.
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Becky Lamason
Associate Professor of Biology617-258-6155Short Bio
In the Lamason lab, we investigate how intracellular bacterial pathogens such as Rickettsia parkeri and Listeria monocytogenes hijack host cell processes to promote infection. We use cellular, molecular, genetic, biochemical, and biophysical approaches to elucidate the mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions in order to reveal key insights into pathogenesis and host cell biology.
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Michael Laub
Associate Professor of Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical InstituteShort Bio
Our lab is currently interested in: (1) understanding how toxin-antitoxin systems and other immunity mechanisms help bacteria defend themselves against phage predation and (2) elucidating the molecular basis of protein evolution and the coevolution of interacting proteins. We use a combination of genetics, biochemistry, microscopy, computational analyses, and genome-scale approaches like RNA-seq. Our work is rooted in a desire to develop a deep, fundamental understanding of how bacteria function and evolve, but it also has implications for and applications in areas such as protein engineering and phage therapy.
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Daniel Lew
Professor of BiologyShort Bio
Faculty Bio: Daniel Lew joined the Department of Biology at MIT as a Professor in the Spring of 2023. Professor Lew completed a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Rockefeller University in 1990, and then did postdoctoral work at the Scripps Research Institute where he investigated the cell cycle control in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. His research focuses on the study of cell polarity and the spatial decoding of chemical signals by cells, which are critical for many biological phenomena.
Research Summary: We study questions in fundamental cell biology, using fungal models and a mix of experimental and computational approaches. Fungi and animals share conserved molecular strategies to perform many core cell functions, so the tractable yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae provides a superb model system to gain in-depth understanding that can be translated into computational models. We also study an emerging non-model fungus, Aureobasidium pullulans, that is an ubiquitous poly-extremophile with unconventional growth modes that raise novel questions in cell biology.
Some questions of interest:
- How do cells regulate cell polarity to achieve different morphologies?
- How do cells orient cell polarity in response to extracellular signals?
- How do cells distribute their contents, particularly in complex geometries?
- How do fungi growing under stringent turgor pressure expand their cell walls without lysing?
- How do cell-cell contacts between cell walls communicate mechanical information to the cell?