Our seminars are funded in part by the Carleen M. Collins Lectureship Fund at the Department of Microbiology.
The Carleen M. Collins, Ph.D. Endowed Lectureship in Microbiology was created to bring to the University distinguished scholars in the field of microbiology and to pay tribute to Carleen M. Collins, Ph.D.
Dr. Collins, a prominent microbiologist and expert in microbial pathogenesis, was a UW professor of microbiology. She earned her bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in microbiology from UCLA, and she completed her postdoctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Collins studied at the University of Umea, Sweden, as a Fulbright scholar. She rose to the rank of professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, where she taught and headed a microbiology research laboratory. In 2002, Dr. Collins moved to Seattle, becoming professor of microbiology at the UW. Her career was focused on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial virulence, with a specific emphasis on the activities and structures of bacterial exotoxins. Dr. Collins made major contributions to the understanding of diseases caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes, ubiquitous bacteria that cause a wide spectrum of disease, including infections of the skin and throat, food poisoning, and toxic shock syndrome. She also made major contributions to understanding the mechanisms by which bacterial virulence factors are regulated and had embarked upon a new area of research to understand how bacteria promote disease through interaction with specific insects as part of their transmission to humans.