UAB - School of Medicine - Microbiology - Seminar Series

Where: BBRB 170

When: Tuesdays at Noon

SEPTEMBER 2017
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
September 5	Dr. Cheri Stabler	University of Florida	Hubert Tse	Dr. Stabler's research centers on engineering translational biomaterial platform for cell therapies, particularly Type 1 diabetes.
September 12	David Wells Research Sympoium Lecture - Dr. Ellen Rothenberg	California Institute of Technology	Students and Dr. Lund	The Rothenberg group studies the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for developmental lineage choice as hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into T lymphocytes.
September 19	Dr. Kelly Doran	University of Colorado	David Briles	Her main research areas seek to understand and how bacteria penetrate the bloodbrain barrier to cause meningitis, as well as how bacteria colonize the female reproductive tract prior to causing disease.
September 26	Dr. Deborah Hogan, co-sponsored by School of Dentistry	Dartmouth School of Medicine	Hui Wu	We study how opportunistic pathogens adapt to host-associated environments, with a focus on the fungus Candida albicans, the bacterium and the microbes that they interact with in vivo.

OCTOBER 2017
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
October 3	Dr. Pamela Schwartzberg, MD, PhD	National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH	Dr. Fran Lund	Her laboratory's work has centered on the use of genetic, biochemical and cellular studies to understand T cell signaling, with a focus on pathways affected by primary immunodeficiencies.
October 10	Dr. Yizhi Jane Tao	Rice University	Dr. Todd Green	Our laboratory is interested in the catalytic mechanisms of viral RNA polymerases and in how RNA viruses exert regulation over RNA synthesis through polymerase interactions with viral and cellular factors.
October 17	Dr. Paul Bieniasz	Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center , The Rockefeller University	Jamil Saad	Dr. Bieniasz seeks to define how host gene products influence the replication of retroviruses, with an emphasis on human and primate immunodeficiency viruses.
October 24	Dr. Sabine Ehrt, PhD	Cornell University	Michael Niederweis	To better understand the molecular basis for Mtb’sability to resist host defense mechanisms and the metabolic environment Mtb faces within its host.
October 31	Dr. Solbodan Paessler	UTMB, Department of Pathology	Ilya Frolov	The research in my laboratory has focused on viral pathogenesis, vaccine development and on development of animal models to test new vaccine candidates and antiviral drugs. My main research interest is in understanding the mechanisms by which emerging RNA viruses cause encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever, or respiratory diseases.

NOVEMBER 2017
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
November 7	Susan Dubay Memorial Lecture - Dr. Daniel A. Portnoy	UC Berkley School of Public Health	Dr. Fran Lund	Dr. Portnoy's lab has worked on the pathogenesis of Listeria monocytogenes for over two decades, topics ranging from basic aspect of physiology, cell biology of infection and innate and acquired immunity as well.
November 14	Dr. Melissa Kendall	University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville	Microbiology grad students - Cathy Yea Won Sung and Anukul Shenoy	My research examines signaling pathways that enable bacterial pathogens to sense and adapt to specific niches within a host to cause disease.
November 21	Not holding Seminar -week of Thanksgiving
November 28	HOLDING / not currently avialable

DECEMBER 2017
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
December 5	Dr. Ivaylo Ivanov	Columbia University	Fran Lund	Our laboratory is interested in identifying specific examples of immunomodulatory interactions between commensals and the host as well as the underlying mechanisms.
December 12	HOLDING/ not currently avialable
December 19	HOLDING / not currently avialable
December 26	Not holding Seminar - week of Christmas break

JANUARY 2018
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
January 2	Not Holding Seminar - week of New Year's
January 9	Dr. Avery August	Cornell University	Amy Weinmann	We are interested in the role of Tyrosine Kinases (TKs) in regulating the immune response, with the goal of using this information to manipulate immune responses. We are specifically interested in the Tec families of nonreceptor TKs.
January 16	Dr. Sallie Permar	Duke University	Mark Walter	Dr. Permar's work focuses on maternal correlates of immune protection against vertical transmission of neonatal viral pathogens.
January 23	Dr. Tanecia Mitchell	UAB, Department of Urology	Hubert Tse	Dr. Mitchell’s current research investigates the role of mitochondria and oxidative stress in immune cells from patients with kidney stone disease and interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome. It is Dr. Mitchell’s hope that her research will provide relevant scientific information to help understand, prevent, and/or treat renal diseases and urological disorders.
January 30	Dr. Yabing Chen	UAB, Department of Molecular and Cellular Pathology	Dr. Jamil Saad	Regulation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) contributes significantly to the development of cardiovascular diseases, including atherosclerosis and pulmonary hypertension. Increased oxidative stress accelerates the progression of atherosclerosis and vascular calcification. Projects involve characterization of molecular signals that regulates osteogenic transcription factor Runx2 in vascular calcification, as well as mechanisms underlying Runx2 in modulating the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and vascular calcification.

February 2018
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
February 6	Dr. Cara Pager	University of Albany, State University of New York	Dr Sunnie Thompson	Our lab is interested in the intracate ways in which Flavaviruses subvert host RNA metabolism paths, to avoid destruction of their genomes and promote viral gene expression
February 13	Microbiology faculty recruit Dr. Felipe Santiago-Tirado	Washington Univsersity	Dr. Carlos Orihuela	Fungal pathogenensis
February 20	Not available, MARX LECTURE Dr. Feng Zhang	Broad Institue of MIT and Harvard	Dr. Fran Lund	Our group is developing and applying molecular and optical technologies for probing brain function in health and disease.
February 27	Dr. Edward Swords	University of Alabama at Birmingham	Dr . Fran Lund	Host and Microbial Determinants of Bacterial Colonization and Persistence during Opportunistic Airway Infections

March 2018
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
March 6	Dr. Emma Teixeiro-Pernas	Univseristy of Missouri School of Medicine	Beatriz Leon-Ruiz	In my lab we wish to understand the mechanisms that drive the generation of efficient memory T cells.
March 12*	Dr. Rakesh Patel	UAB, Department of Pathology	Michael Gray	We are interested in understanding what regulates the reactivity and function of reactive species and pursue this aim in the following contexts: interactions of nitric oxide and nitrite with red blood cells during normal physiological conditions and during inflammation associated with Sepsis and ischemia-reperfusion injury and the anti-inflannatry effects of dietary antioxidants
March 20	Dr. Andre Ballesteros-Tato	UAB, Department of Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology	Dr. Beatriz Leon-Ruiz	The focus of the research in my laboratory is to study the cellular interactions, the environmental cues and the molecular mechanisms that control the differential capacity of distinct populations of dendritic cells (DCs) to regulate effector, memory T cell responses and T follicular helper (Tfh) cell differentiation in different models of infection and autoimmune disease. In addition, we are studying the role of Tfh cells in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE or Lupus) and Rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
March 27	Dr. Hao Shen	University of Pennsylvania	Allan Zajac	We have a long-standing interest in basic questions related to generation of effective immune responses, mechanisms of protective immunity, and the establishment of long-term immunological memory.

APRIL 2018
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
April 3	Dr. Carlos Oriheula, PhD	Department of Microbiology, UAB	Fran Lund	Dr.Orihuela's research focus has been the host-pathogen interactions responsible for the development of invasive pneumococcal disease (i.e transition of the bacteria from nasopharynx to lungs, lungs to bloodstream, bloodstream to tissues and central nervous system). Most recently this includes exploring how advanced age impacts innate immunity and characterization of the cardiotoxic events that occur during IPD.
April 10	Dr. Max Nibert, MD, PhD	Harvard Medical School	Elliot Leftkowitz	We are interested to define the biochemical and biophysical mechanisms by which non-enveloped viruses penetrate the cellular membrane barrier during entry.
April 17	Dr. Diane Mathis	Harvard Medical School	Students in the graduate student Immunology Theme / Dr. Louis Justement	Our lab works in the broad fields of T cell differentiation and tolerance/autoimmunity, translating mechanistic studies on mouse models to normal and diseased humans.
April 24	Dr. Javier Campos-Gomez	Southern Research	Fran Lund	His main research interest is in the field of infectious diseases, where he is focused on developing bacteriophage based therapies to treat or prevent viral and bacterial infectious diseases. This includes engineering filamentous phages for targeting and containing multidrug resistant and reemerging bacterial diseases and the use of phages as platforms to display antigens of important pathogens with vaccines purposes.

May 2018
Date	Name	Institution	Host	Area of Interest/Recent Publications	Title
May 1	Dr. Alice Prince	Columbia University	Carlos Orihuela	Our laboratory studies the interaction of the host and bacterial pathogens. We have focused upon the host response to bacterial components and how this response is activated and regulated in both the airway and skin.
May 8	Dr. Hai-hui Xue	Iowa University	Dr. Hui Hu	We are interested in transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of T cell development and mature T cell responses to infections. Our current focus is on Tcf1 and Lef1 transcription factors in the Tcf/Lef family, their interacting partners including the - and -catenin coactivators and TLE corepressors.
May 15	Dr. Jainmei Leavenworth	UAB, Department of Neurosurgery	Jamil Saad or Fran Lund	Her main research interest is to understand the mechanisms of self-tolerance, focusing on molecular and cellular elements that regulate effector and regulatory cell subsets of the immune response. Her long-term goal is to seek effective strategies for cancer immunotherapy using mouse models and specimens from patients with malignant tumors, including gliomas.
May 22	Dr. Vincent Racaniello	Columbia University	Meagan Jenkins Eric Carlin Virology Graduate Students	Our research focuses on the interaction of viruses with the innate immune system, viral pathogenesis, and viral discovery in wild animals.
May 29	Dr. Michael Gray	UAB, Department of Micrbiology	Jamil Saad	We are particularly interested in the molecular biology of the symbiotic and probiotic bacteria that make up the healthy microbiome. Our current research focuses on the bacterial response to reactive chlorine stress.