Kim Davis, PhD
The Davis lab explores heterogeneity within bacterial populations utilizing approaches that include transcriptional fluorescent reporters to visualize bacterial gene expression at the single cell-level, and immunofluorescence microscopy to visualize heterogeneity within host cell populations. Their overarching goals are to define the expression patterns of potential drug targets and improve understanding of the pathways that promote altered antibiotic susceptibility, to ultimately develop improved therapeutics. Recently, we have developed molecular tools to identify slow-growing subsets of Yersinia with reduced antibiotic susceptibility, and have generated an antibiotic-sensing reporter to detect tetracycline exposure within host tissues.
Federico Rey, PhD
Humans studies have revealed consistent alterations in the gut microbiomes of patients with cardiometabolic and aging-associated diseases. A major focus of my group is to understand how variations in the gut microbiome modulate the effects of diet and host’s susceptibility to cardiometabolic disease. To address these questions the Rey lab uses a combination of hypothesis-generating, sequencing-centered analyses of microbiomes from humans and mice, followed by proof-of-principle/proof-of-mechanism studies in gnotobiotic mouse models of disease and classic bacteriology experiments.
Victor Nizet, PhD
Dr. Nizet’s laboratory interests lie in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and the innate immune system, with a special focus on invasive and antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Using a variety of molecular genetic approaches, the laboratory discovers and characterizes bacterial virulence factors involved in cytotoxicity, adherence, invasion, inflammation, molecular mimicry and resistance to immunologic clearance.
Kendra Rumbaugh, PhD
Kendra Rumbaugh was born in New Mexico and received her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Texas, El Paso. She attended graduate school at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in Lubbock, and her doctoral work focused on the role of quorum sensing in the pathogenesis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After receiving her Ph.D. in medical microbiology she received a post-doctoral training fellowship from Cystic Fibrosis Research Inc. and moved to San Francisco to work in the Wiener-Kronish laboratory at UCSF. She eventually returned to Lubbock, where she is now a tenured Professor in the Department of Surgery, with joint appointments in Depts. of Cell Biology and Biochemistry and Immunology and Molecular Microbiology, at TTUHSC. Dr. Rumbaugh’s research focuses on understanding and treating wound infections, and she is especially interested in how biofilms, polymicrobial interactions and quorum sensing contribute to bacterial pathogenesis.