Brittany Johnson, graduate student in the Criss lab, was selected to give a talk at the American Society for Microbiology 2012 annual meeting. The title of her talk is Neisseria gonorrhoeae alters antimicrobial granule mobilization and phagolysosome formation to survive intracellularly in human neutrophils. She will be presenting during the session entitled Phagocytes: Heroes and Victims of Infection.

The award is given annually to a faculty member who demonstrates excellence in leadership, scholarship and mentoring, and who exerts influence in fostering a better institutional environment by advocating for women's issues.

Bouton has mentored numerous undergraduate, medical and bioengineering students. She has a long history of competing successfully for research awards from the National Institutes of Health, and pre-doctoral and doctoral training awards from the National Cancer Institute. [more]

Shawn Fahl, a student in Tim Bender's laboratory, has been chosen as the Outstanding MII graduate student.  He will be the 2012 Peach/Hungerford Award Nominee for the MII/MIC Graduate Program.  Shawn will join the pool of other BIMS Graduate Programs' outstanding students, in the next round of selection for the Peach and Hungerford Awards, which will be announced during the GBS Symposium in April 2012.

Numerous awards for Zack Weiner, Glomski Lab:

Weiner Z.P., Cardani A., Glomski I.J. Seeding of Bacillus anthracis into the draining lymph node by “Trojan horse” phagocytes does not mediate subcutaneous infection lethality. Huskey Research Symposium 2012, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Presenting student received a third- place poster award

Weiner Z.P., Cardani A., Glomski I.J. Seeding of Bacillus anthracis into the draining lymph node by “Trojan horse” phagocytes does not mediate subcutaneous infection lethality. University of Virginia Infectious Disease Research Day 2012

Presenting student was winner of Best Poster Award

Weiner Z.P., Cardani A., Glomski I.J. Seeding of Bacillus anthracis into the draining lymph node by “Trojan horse” phagocytes does not mediate subcutaneous infection lethality. Bacillus- ACT Meeting 2011. Bruges, Belgium

Presenting student was winner of the “Young Investigator Award”

Numerous awards for David Lowe, Glomski Lab

Lowe D.L., Ernst S.M., Glomski I.J. Characterizing in vivo bottlenecks in disseminating inhalational anthrax. Huskey Research Symposium 2012, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Presenting student received a second- place poster award

*Lowe D.L., Ernst S.M., Glomski I.J. Characterizing in vivo bottlenecks in disseminating inhalational anthrax. University of Virginia Infectious Disease Research Day 2012

Presenting student was winner of Best Presentation Award

Lowe D.L., Ernst S.M., Glomski I.J. Characterizing in vivo bottlenecks in disseminating inhalational anthrax. Bacillus- ACT Meeting 2011. Bruges, Belgium

Presenting student was the recipient of a travel award.

2012 ASM Graduate Microbiology Teaching Award is Joanna B. Goldberg, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, University of Virginia, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

"Goldberg is truly deserving of this award," describes Sara Cassidy of the University of Michigan, a former student of Goldberg's. "Through years of practice, she has developed an uncanny ability to detect and address the needs of individual students-a quality of mentorship that is difficult to teach."[  more]

June 2011 Microcosm

March 2011 Microcosm

Alison Criss is among the five "Young U.Va. Innovators" chosen for FEST Funding.
"U.Va. faculty members are annually invited to submit proposals for FEST funding. This year, 17 researchers from across the scientific disciplines presented a range of projects. A review committee made up of senior faculty chose the winners based on originality and likeliness of attracting significant future funding.

"In a field of extremely strong proposals, three young biomedical researchers stood out as leaders in their respective fields," said microbiology professor Marcia McDuffie, who served on the review committee.

Criss garnered FEST funding for a project that will use state-of-the-art techniques to define the mechanisms by which pathogenic Neisseria bacteria evade clearance by the immune system, generating devastating diseases such as gonorrhea. The methods she is developing could lead to breakthroughs in understanding at the genome level the resistance of gonorrhea – and other global infectious diseases – to current antibiotics.

"Dr. Criss has established an internationally recognized research program on the interactions between bacteria and the human immune system," McDuffie noted."

Graduation 2011:  17 of the 45 BIMS PhD graduates were from the Department of Microbiology!

Pictured to the right: Madhura Lohia with mentor Ian Macara, Virginia Carroll (mentor Mike Brown not pictured), Jessica Pritchard and Kirsten Ludwig with mentor Sally Parsons, Marcin Walkiewicz (mentor Dan Engel - not in group photo but see hooding photo), Associate Dean of Graduate and Medical Programs Amy Bouton, and Michael Stadnisky (mentor Mike Brown).

Read the Department of Microbiology newsletter.

Jan. 2011

Chairman of the UVA School of Medicine’s  Department of Microbiology and director of the UVA Center for Cell Clearance, Ravichandran is internationally recognized for his ground-breaking research into the mechanisms of cell clearance. When functioning properly, our bodies safely remove an estimated one million dying cells per second. Failure to promptly remove dying cells, however, is linked to chronic inflammation, developmental defects, and such autoimmune diseases as lupus, arthritis and atherosclerosis. [ more]

Matt Hufford, Thomas Brachiale Lab, wins the Wagner Prize for outstanding graduate student research in Microbiology. He was also selected to represent the MII program for the Peach/Hungerford awards.

Jay Fox, PhD, Professor and Assistant Dean of Research Support of Microbiology

University of Virginia Medical School, Charlottesville and his contributions to studies of snake venom toxins have landed him on the pages of ASBMB today.

Read the full article:   http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=11118

Read the Departmental Newsletters

Dec. 2010

Nov. 2010

Marie Louise Hammarskjold, MD, PhD and David Rekosh, PhD, Myles H. Thaler Center Awarded a new Patent and a Travel Award to teach in South Africa.

The patent is for the discovery of a compound that inhibits HIV replication.  This work is and important step in the development of an entirely new class of anit-HIV drugs.

The travel award will help fund a trip to the University of Venda, South Africa, where members of the Thaler Center have already taught students in previous years.

UVa researchers breaking ground on male fertility (Daily Progress, Dec. 25, 2010)

Kodi S. Ravichandran,  chairman of the UVa Department of Microbiology, and  Jeffrey J. Lysiak, assistant professor of urology, have spent four years studying how the male testes remove dead or dying immature sperm cells. This removal is needed for testes to remain healthy and normal,  Lysiak said.[ excerpt from the Daily Progress article.  Read more]

October 2010: Kodi S. Ravichandran, PhD, was announced to be the new Chair of the Department of Microbiology. Dr. Ravichandran, the Harrison Distinguished Professor of Microbiology, joined the department in 1996 and was appointed Professor of Microbiology in 2004. He has served as Director of the Center for Cell Clearance since 2008.

Dr. Ravichandran’s research focuses on apoptotic cell clearance and intracellular signaling pathways regulating T and B lymphocyte function. The daily clearance of billions of apoptotic (dead) cells is fundamentally important in maintaining health. Failure to promptly and efficiently clear apoptotic cells can lead to chronic inflammation, autoimmunity and developmental defects. Dr. Ravichandran’s laboratory addresses how the dying cells are recognized by phagocytes, ingested, and removed without harm to the host. His laboratory is also addressing how adapter proteins and chemokine receptors regulate specific checkpoints during T cell development in the thymus.

After receiving a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Madras Veterinary College, Dr. Ravichandran received his PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1992. He performed his post-doctoral work in the Division of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. After a year as Instructor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Ravichandran joined the faculty at UVA.

Dr. Ravichandran has authored more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including multiple publications in the top biomedical journals such as Cell, Nature, Science, Nature Immunology and Nature Cell Biology. Dr. Ravichandran’s laboratory has been highly productive over the years here at UVA, including four articles published in Nature in the past 12 months. He serves on many NIH review panels and other granting agencies, and also serves as a reviewer for numerous biomedical journals. He has been an Invited or Plenary Speaker in many national and international meetings and is a recognized world leader in the fields of apoptosis and cell clearance.

Dr. Ravichandran has also distinguished himself with his leadership in research and teaching at UVA. Dr. Ravichandran is the Program Director of the Immunology T32 Training Grant and oversaw its successful competitive renewal in 2010. He was also honored with the Robert J. Kadner Mentoring Award for graduate and post-doctoral training.

David Brautigan, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Director of the Center for Cell Signaling has accepted the invitation to serve as chairperson of the Molecular and Integrative Signal Transduction Study Section for Scientific Review at the NIH. "Membership on a study section represents a major commitment of professional time and energy as well as a unique opportunity to contribute to the national biomedical research effort.  Members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements and honors. Service on a study section also requires mature judgment and objectivity as well as the ability to work effectively in a group. The skill and leadership offered by the chairperson determine to a significant extent the effectiveness and efficiency of the review group." (excerpt from the letter by Toni Scarpa, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Scientific Review to inform Dean Dekosky, MD of the UVA Medical School about David Brautigan's new responsibility.)

Two Week Intensive Course and Lab Practicum at the University of Venda, South Africa by the Myles H. Thaler AIDS Center and the Microbiology Department

This spring, five members (Lou Hammarskjold, David Rekosh, AJ Roberts, Lisa Nichols and Emily Sloan) of the Myles H. Thaler AIDS Center and the Microbiology Department joined faculty and students at the University of Venda (UNIVEN) in Limpopo Province, South Africa, for a two-week intensive course and lab practicum emphasizing the molecular biological roles of RNA. Professors Hammarskjold and Rekosh lectured each morning to 30 students who are pursuing undergraduate honors degrees or graduate degrees in microbiology, biochemistry or zoology. Small group discussions, facilitated by UVA and UNIVEN team members, followed each morning's lecture and helped clarify critical concepts. For nearly half the students, the afternoons were filled with an intensive lab practicum that emphasized PCR, cloning, transformations and colony selection, sequence analysis and bioinformatics, cell culture and transfections, fluorescent microscopy, and bioluminescent assays. The course, lab practicum, and other team activities were a critical part of capacity building at UNIVEN for Professors Pascal Bessong and Samie Amidou, UNIVEN researchers, who have ongoing collaborations with UVA faculty in Microbiology and the Center for Global Health. Professors Hammarskjold and Rekosh plan to return in the spring of 2011 to lecture in a microbiology course that is directed by Professor Amidou .

May 28, 2010 - University of Virginia medical professor Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his research into the causes of asthma and allergic disease. The Royal Society is the United Kingdom's national academy of science and the oldest scientific academy in the world. His recent work, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, looked at patients who developed a life-threatening allergic reaction, called anaphylaxis, during treatment for cancer. In February 2009, he led a study on anaphylactic reactions that occurred several hours after eating beef, pork or lamb. Both of these discoveries are related to IgE antibodies to a complex mammalian sugar that appear to be induced by tick bites. This represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of allergic reactions, including those to food. [more]

Appointment of Amy H. Bouton, PhD, to the position of Associate Dean for Graduate and Medical Scientist Programs, effective July 1, 2010.
Dr. Bouton, who has been at UVA since 1991, is Professor of Microbiology. Her lab has two major research interests - adhesion signaling in macrophages, and molecular mechanisms by which breast cancer cells become resistant to the growth-inhibitory effects of antiestrogens (competitive inhibitors of the estrogen receptor).

In her role as Associate Dean for Graduate and Medical Scientist Programs, Dr. Bouton will be responsible for overseeing and supporting all aspects of graduate studies at the School of Medicine. This includes oversight of the BIMS programs, the Graduate Programs Office, and coordination of graduate studies across departments and schools within the University.

Congratulations to Amelia Hufford (Ravichandran Lab) for her selection by the Scientific Review Panel of the Lindau Council to be a participant of the 60th Interdisciplinary Meeting of Nobel Laureates. Amelia was selected in a nationwide competition to attend the meeting from June 27 to July 2, 2010, at Lindau (Germany).

Amelia is the sole representative for the University of Virginia!
More information on the meeting is available at http://www.orau.org/lindau/.

Mike Stadnisky, a student in Mike Brown's laboratory, has been selected for the Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Sciences & Engineering. This award recognizes excellence in original scholarship by Ph.D. students at the University. In addition, it rewards those students bringing recognition to graduate programs at U.Va. through their intellect, dedication, creativity, and passion. This year's competition was very strong!

The University of Virginia presented two Thomas Jefferson Awards on October 16, 2009, one recognizing excellence in service and the other recognizing excellence in scholarship. They are the highest honors that the University bestows.The 2009 Jefferon award for scholarship went to J. Thomas Parsons, chairman of the Department of Microbiology and F. Palmer Weber Professor of Medical Research. Parsons, who joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1974, is widely recognized as a leading researcher in the field of cell signaling, an important avenue of cancer research.

"Tom is among the top couple percent in total citations among biochemists and cell biologists," he wrote. "Many researchers at U.Va. and around the world owe their careers to FAK and Tom's discovery." (Rick Horwitz, PhD)
[read the Complete News Release]

Academy of Distinguished Educators

Amy H. Bouton, PhD, Professor of Microbiology receives the Robert J. Kadner Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching

NIH, Center for Cancer Research
Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Head, Biochemical Genetics Section
Laboratory Co-Chief
Beyond Transcription: Regulatory Networks with Small RNA Regulators

9/22/2009

Jordan Hall Conference Center Auditorium

Two Distinguished Scientist Awards to Professors of Microbiology

J.T. Parsons', PhD and M. Weber's, PhD leadership in their research is recognized both at UVa and by peers nationally and internationally as having made a major impact on their field of study:

J.T. Parsons, PhD Professor of Microbiology and Chair, receives the 2009 University of Virginia Distinguished Scientist Award for his research contributions to Rous sarcoma virus mediated transformation (viral mediated cancer), identification of tyrosine phosphorylated substrates by the Src gene using monoclonal antibodies, identification of several important, novel proteins, especially focal adhesion kinase (FAK), solidified the emerging notion that adhesion receptors mediate signaling and linked FAK-mediated signaling to proliferation, programmed cell death, gene expression, migration and synaptic function in normal cells and implicated it in many diseases, particularly cancer, leading to drugs now in human trials againt metastatic cancer that inhibit the kinase activity of FAK.

Different Skills, Common Goal
Teamwork yielding results in cancer research

Text and Images from UVA Magazine

Team: Deborah Lannigan (cell and molecular biologist), Ian Macara (cell biologist), David Brenin (surgeon)
Research: They are growing "organoids" from human tissue to track cancer growth at the cellular level and synthesizing a compound derived from the Amazon jungle plant Fosteronica Refracta to stop the growth of breast cancer cells.
In layman's terms: U.Va. is pioneering a process to "grow" live, healthy breast tissue in the lab. By adding cancer cells to the tissue, they can see how cancer develops in human tissue rather than in mice. This breakthrough will be used to test the effectiveness of several therapies, including a compound discovered at U.Va. that inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

Team: Kim Kelly (biomedical engineer), J. Thomas Parsons (cancer biologist), Todd Bauer (surgeon-scientist)
Research: They are exploring the basic biology of pancreatic cancer, including identifying a protein (uPAR) that, when blocked, decreases the growth and metastasis of human pancreatic cancers in mice. They are evaluating signaling pathways in individual tumors to develop patient-specific targeted therapies and identifying early biomarkers that could make precancerous cells visible via MRI and PET scans.
In layman's terms: The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is only 5 percent. Diagnosing pancreatic cancer early, preventing its spread and understanding the genetic profile of each patient's individual tumor can greatly improve treatment options and outcomes.

Team: Craig Slingluff (surgeon-scientist), Don Hunt (chemist), Vic Engelhard (microbiologist and immunologist)
Research: The group has pioneered the development of vaccines that fight melanoma and other cancers. They were the first group to identify a peptide antigen in melanoma that can be targeted by T-lymphocytes, the cells capable of directly killing cancer cells.
In layman's terms: By identifying molecular targets on cancer cells, the team can use vaccines to muster the body's immune system in a "nontoxic war on cancer." Result: killing cancer cells without killing healthy tissue. Since 1996, the Human Immune Therapy Center has enrolled more than 500 patients in anti-cancer vaccine clinical trials.

Department Chair Tom Parsons says they could not function without her.

2009 Peach Hungerford Award Recipient

Karin Eisinger is the MII's 2009 recipient for the Peach/Hungerford Award. Karin is a student in Deb Lannigan's laboratory in the Center for Cell Signaling. Karin was chosen by a selection committee comprised of six MII and Microbiology faculty members and chaired by David Benjamin, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology. Congratulations to Karin as this year's recipient.

The 7th annual Robert R. Wagner Prize for Outstanding Research in Microbiology was awarded to Anna Maria Copeland. Anna Maria is a doctoral Student in Dr. Jay Browns's lab. Congratulations, Anna Maria!

Find more details on the Wagner Awards web site.

Dan Gioeli, Ph.D. gets Grant for Prostate Cancer Research from the National Cancer Institute
"For me the most exciting thing is now we have some of the resources to address what I think is a very interesting and important question.[...] now we can start to answer a piece of the puzzle." 
Daniel Gioli, Ph.D."

read excerpt from news show on NBC29

Academy of Distinguished Educators

Victor H. Engelhard (Robert J. Kadner Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching)

2008 Gina Finzi Summer Fellowship Award from the Lupus Foundation of America

Chao Jiang in Dr. Loren Erickson's lab

The purpose of this award is to foster an interest among young researchers in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) through support of basic, clinical, or psychosocial research under the supervision of an established investigator.
Project:"The Role of BCMA for Plasma Cell Survival in Murine SLE".
Mentor:  Dr. Loren Erickson

John Roth, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor
College of Biological Sciences
UC Davis

The Robert Bennett Bean Award: Established by the Class of 1966 in honor of Dr. Robert Bennett Bean, anatomist, anthropologist, and chair of the Department of Anatomy from 1916 to 1942. This yearly award is presented by the second year class to one member of the faculty for excellence in teaching the basic medical sciences.

Julie Davis Turner, PhD

Eighth Annual Robert J. Huskey Graduate Research Exhibition - first place for oral presentation: 

Anna Maria Copeland in Dr. Jay Brown's lab

"Herpes simplex virus replication: Roles of viral proteins and nucleoporins in capsid-nucleus attachment"

Graduate Biosciences Society Student Symposium - second place for poster presentation

Colin Brinkman in Dr. Victor Engelhard's lab

"Activated CD8 T cells Redistribute to Antigen Free Lymph Nodes and Exhibit Effector and Memory Cell Characteristics"

2008 Michael J. Peach Award

Edward Stites in Dr. Kodi Ravichandran's lab

Project: Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Oncogenic Ras Signaling

Mentor: Dr. Kodi Ravichandran

Microbiology and Global Health Lecture

"Polio Eradication:  A Global Case Study"

Neal Nathanson, M.D.
Associate Dean
Global Health Programs
University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine

J. Thomas Parsons, PhD, Dick Guerrant, PhD,  Becca Dillingham, PhD and Neal Nathanson, PhD

Glomski Lab Warming: Ian Glomski joined the Microbiology faculty in August 2007.

Email Address: ijg2b@virginia.edu

2008 Wagner Prize

The 6th annual Robert R. Wagner Prize for Outstanding Research in Microbiology was awarded to Michelle L. Demory, Ph.D.  Michelle is in Dr. Sarah J. Parsons' lab.  Congratulations, Michelle!

Find more details on the Wagner Awards web site.

Ian Macara, PhD receives Distinguished Scientist Award

"Macara is recognized as a scientific leader, both at U.Va. and beyond. He has been instrumental in acquiring state-of-the-art cellular imaging equipment for the Advanced Microscopy Facility, creating an invaluable resource for U.Va.'s scientists. In addition, he has over 165 publications, many of which appear in prestigious journals such as Cell, Science, and Nature. His citation index of 58 is extremely high, indicating the importance and regard his research has generated."

"Ian Macara's research on nuclear protein transport and cellular polarity has shown how cells such as neurons or mammary cells organize information to form specific structures, and to orient within tissues," said Dr. Sharon L. Hostler, interim vice president and dean of the School of Medicine. "This has significant impact in understanding tissue development, and dysregulation of cell function in early tumor progression."

Dec. 07:
Microbiology/Global Health Seminar:
Dr. Tiffany Hamm, PhD

Director for HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Treatment Program, Division of Retrovirology - US Military Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute for Research

"Supporting HIV Care and Treatment in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda"

Oct 07:
Microbiology/Global Health Seminar:

Dr. Siddhartha Mahanty, M.D., M.P.H.
Staff Physician
Helminth Immunology Section
Laboratory of Parasitic Disease NIAID, NIH
"Translational research in the
developing world: Collaborative  studies on malaria and helminth infections in West Africa"

Inaugural Global Health Seminar with Dick Guerrant, Siddhartha Ma, and Tom Parsons (10-17-2007)

Sept 07:

Academy of Distinguished Educators Distinguished Educators, Robert J. Kader Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching :

Kodi S. "Ravi" Ravichandran (Robert J. Kadner Award for outstanding graduate student teaching) and J. Thomas Parsons (Chair).

First Annual Robert J. Kadner Distinguished Lecture in Microbiology

Thomas J. Silhavy, Ph.D.
Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

"Outer Membrane Biogenesis in Gram-Negative Bacteria"

Monday, September 17, 2007 at 4pm
Jordan Hall Conference Center Auditorium
Reception to follow

For any information please contact Lynn McCutcheon.

Congratulations to the following MII students:

In 2006:

Martha W. Campbell Retires

Read about Martha W. Campbell's achievements in the department and look at pictures of the retirement party.

2006 Wagner Prize Awarded

The 4th annual Robert R. Wagner Prize for Outstanding Research in Microbiology was awarded to Michael W. Cruise on March 29, 2006.  Michael is in Dr. Young Hahn's lab.  Congratulations, Michael!

2006 Kadner Symposium :

The first annual Kadner Symposium took place on September 12, 2006 in honor and memory of:

Robert J. Kadner, Ph.D.

We mourn the loss of our friend and collegue Robert J. Kadner, Ph.D.  Professor and Vice Chair of Microbiology.  Read the obituary.

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