Paul Himes Lab
Sidebar
About
We are interested in how bacteria living in mixed communities sense their surroundings and decide how to respond. If a pathogenic bacterium produces proteins at the wrong time, it can be outcompeted by other, more efficient bacteria, or it might be more likely to be detected by the host immune system and elimination (neither outcome looks promising for its survival as a species).
Bacteria use a number of mechanisms to answer the important question of “How do I know when I should turn on and off these genes?” By dissecting the regulation of these signaling pathways, we hope to learn how bacteria make the decisions that impact there fitness and ability to cause disease.
Another project of the lab (identifying soil microbes that are able to promote plant growth) was subject to a recent profile in the news.
Key Research Areas
- Bacterial communication
- Antibiotic resistance
- Bioremediation of soils
- Fairness in online assessments