Past News & Announcements
Malavika Prithviraj Finalist in Three Minute Thesis Competition
February 2021: Malavika Prithviraj, microbiology Ph.D. candidate, was recently named a finalist in the UMass Graduate School's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition for her presenation, Blocking the Synthesis of Bacterial Surface Structures. The final competition will be held via Zoom on March 18 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. Read more...
MicrobeBlaster Selected as One of Five Innovation Challenge Finalists
Sarah Kaunfer, a microbiology junior, recently competed in The Semifinal of the Innovation Challenge. Sarah Kaunfer and her teammates Simran Jeet, Phoebe Lasic-Ellis and Hayley McIsaac were among 17 teams who gave five-minute pitches describing their venture.
COVID-19 Mutations in 3D
January 2021: Eric Martz shows the positions of the mutations in the higher-contagion UK and South African coronavirus mutant lineages on 3D cryo-EM models of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, along with the expected consequences of each mutation, in an article in Proteopedia.Org. Also there: animations of spike protein priming and the subsequent membrane fusion, and downloadable Powerpoint-ready movies.
Jim Holden Receives NASA Grant
November 2020: Jim Holden, Professor of Microbiology, recently received a three-year NASA Exobiology grant. Dr. Holden will continue his studies into the potential for life to adapt to extreme environments and its implications for life beyond Earth. Read more...
Microbiologists Identify Source of Methane in Amazon Pastures
October 2020: A team of microbiologists led by Klaus Nüsslein, UMass Amherst, and Marie Kroeger, Los Alamos National Laboratory, have reported that they have identified the source of methane being emitted from pastures in Brazil's Amazon region. Read more...
Sloan Siegrist Participates in SEA-PHAGES Program
October 2020: Sloan Siegrist, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, was among life science faculty who participated in the pilot of CNS's Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program. In order to improve the academic success of students majoring in STEM disciplines, the UMass Inclusive Excellence Initiative aims to provide authentic research experiences to science majors, especially those majoring in the life sciences, as part of a student’s first year curriculum and continuing into their upper division courses. As part of this initiative, CNS launched the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program in the introductory biology laboratory experience. Read more...
Mandy Muller Receives NIH Grant
September 2020: Mandy Muller, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, recently received a five-year Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Dr. Muller will continue her advanced studies into how certain viruses evade the body’s immune response by hiding, undetectable, deep in tissues for decades. Read more...
Barry Goodell and Reuben Shipway Receive NSF Grant
June 2020: Dr. Reuben Shipway at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, and Professor Barry Goodell, UMass Microbiology, have received a 2-year National Science Foundation (IOS- Plant Biotic Interactions) award for $476,483 entitled: “How do shipworms eat wood? A non-enzymatic, symbiont-mediated mechanism for the digestion of lignocellulose in teredinids”. Read more...
Microbiology and Engineering Electrically Connect
June 2020: In a series of four recent papers in Nature and other high visibility journals the Yao lab in Engineering and the Lovley lab in Microbiology report on new applications for microbial nanowires. Read more...New Green Technology, Electronics, Sensitive Chemical Sensor
Jonathan Miller Interviewed by Journal of Cell Science
May 2020: Jonathan Miller, Ph.D., a recent graduate of the Microbiology Graduate Program, was interviewed by First Person. First Person is a series of interviews of first authors of a selection of papers published in the Journal of Cell Science. The series helps to promote early-career researchers and their published research findings. Read more...
Ghoshal Three Minute Thesis Finalist
March 2020: Microbiology Ph.D. candidate, Mrinalini Ghoshal, is a finalist in the UMass Graduate School's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Of the 40 preliminary round participants in the competition, 10 were selected as finalists. The 3MT campus final will be held on Friday, February 28th, 1:00-2:30 p.m. in the Old Chapel. Finalists will also present their research to the broader community at the 3MT Community Day at the Amherst Jones Library on Saturday, March 28th, 3-4pm.
Dirty Little Secrets
February 2020: Western Mass News recently met up with Dr. Erika Hamilton, Director of Microbiology Teaching Services, to discover what bacteria live and grow on every day items that we use such as water bottles, purses and gas pumps. Read more...
In another segment on Western Mass News, Dr. Hamilton tested makeup for bacteria that customers sampled in stores. Read more...
Department of Microbiology