UW Microbiology Home

Interspecies Interactions

The tiny obligate parasitic bacterium Southlakia epibionticum(yellow) cultured on its host bacterium, Actinomyces israelii (blue)

Image credit: Drs. Larry Gallagher and Joseph Mougous
Cell Biology of Bacterial Infection

Listeria monocytogenes (green) interacting with macrophages (red/blue).

Credit: Michelle Reniere
Bacterial Self-Organization

Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells that engage (magenta) or don’t (green) in collective behavior spontaneously self organize in cellular aggregates (3D image acquired by confocal laser scanning microscopy).

Credit: Jeffrey Carey and Matt Parsek
Phage antagonize CRISPR-Cas Immunity

Cryo-EM structure of a phage-encoded anti-CRISPR protein (blue) in complex with the RNA-targeting CRISPR effector Cas13 (gray) and its guide RNA (red).

Credit: Alex Meeske
Emergence of Highly Pathogenic Clones of Escherichia coli

Genetic typing of uropathogeic E. coli reveals strong association of some clones with high sensitivity or extreme resistance to multiple antibiotics.

Courtesy: Sokurenko Lab
Quorum sensing in Vibrio fischeri

Lux genes coding for light production are activated by quorum sensing at high cell density. The light produced by the bacteria exposed the film for the image.

Courtesy: Greenberg Lab
Pseudomonas aeruginosa in co-culture

Structural component of bacterial targeting type VI secretion system P. aeruginosa (green) assembled in presence of competitor organism (red).

Courtesy of: Mougous Lab
HIV-1 Envelope Evolution

Reconstructed phylogenetic network of HIV-1 envelope sequences (C2-V5) from subtype B.

Courtesy of: Mullins Lab
Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Colonies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa expressing different amounts of exopolysaccharides.

Courtesy of: Harwood Lab
YopM Crystal Structure

Crystal structure of the Yersinia virulence protein YopM

Courtesy of: Cookson Lab

News & Updates

Virologist and HIV expert Dr. Michael Emerman retires

During his 36-year career at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Michael Emerman, PhD, an Affiliate Professor in the UW Department of Microbiology, made fundamental discoveries about HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. Over his career, Michael trained 27 graduate students and 16 postdoctoral/medical fellows. He was the MCB graduate program co-director for 8 years, taught graduate virology to countless students since 2005, and organized Thursday morning virus group meeting, which has been active since 1992. Thank you Michael for all you've done for our community. Read more about Michael's legacy here.

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2025/07/michael-emerman-retrovirus-hiv-expert-retirement.html

Congratulations to our microbiology undergraduate awardees!

Congratulations to the 2025 Department of Microbiology undergraduate awardees!

Click this link to learn more about the awards and awardees.

Prof. Matt Parsek named an AAAS Fellow

Prof. Matt Parsek was named a 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. Election as a Fellow honors members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society have distinguished them among their peers and colleagues. Congratulations Dr. Parsek!

Dr. Parsek was also featured on The UW Medicine Huddle and the UW NEWS.

Dr. Tristan Jordan receives NIH New Innovator Award!

Assistant Professor Tristan Jordan has been awarded 5 years of funding through the prestigious NIH DP2 New Innovator Award. Congratulations Dr. Jordan!

Recent Publications

Predicting fitness in with transcriptional regulatory network-informed interpretable machine learning.

Frontiers in tuberculosis..

2025

Bustad E, Petry E, Gu O, Griebel BT, Rustad TR, Sherman DR, Yang JH, Ma S

Influence of the broadly neutralizing antibody VRC01 on HIV breakthrough virus populations in antibody-mediated prevention trials.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Jul, 2025

Williamson C, Moodley C, Magaret CA, Giorgi EE, Rolland M, Westfall DH, Yssel A, Deng W, Rossenkhan R, Mkhize NN, Chen L, Zhao H, Bhattacharya T, Pankow A, Murrell B, York T, Gwashu-Nyangiwe A, Ndabambi N, Thebus R, Cohen P, ...

Erratum for Schaefer et al., "RefAHL: a curated quorum sensing reference linking diverse LuxI-type signal synthases with their acyl-homoserine lactone products".

Microbiology resource announcements

Jul, 2025

Schaefer AL, Murdock EG, Pelletier DA, Harwood CS, Peter Greenberg E, Puri AW

Carbene formation as a mechanism for efficient intracellular uptake of cationic antimicrobial carbon acid polymers.

Nature communications

Jul, 2025

Koh CH, Lambu MR, Tan C, Wei G, Kok ZY, Zhang K, Vu QHN, Panneerselvam M, Ooi YJ, Tan SH, Wang Z, Tatina MB, Ng JTY, Guo A, Tonanon P, Dang TT, Gan YH, Mu Y, Hammond PT, Chi YR, ...

Loss of FCoV-23 spike domain 0 enhances fusogenicity and entry kinetics.

Nature

Jul, 2025

Tortorici MA, Choi A, Gibson CA, Lee J, Brown JT, Stewart C, Joshi A, Harari S, Willoughby I, Treichel C, Leaf EM, Bloom JD, King NP, Tait-Burkard C, Whittaker GR, Veesler D, ...

Herpes simplex virus 1 strain 17+ with R2 mutation in UL37 has residual retrograde transport.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Jun, 2025

Walter M, Haick AK, Massa PA, Klouser LM, Stensland L, Santo TK, Xie H, Jerome KR

Genital herpes shedding episodes associate with alterations in the spatial organization and activation of mucosal immune cells.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Jun, 2025

MacLean F, Zemek RM, Tsegaye AT, Graham JB, Swarts JL, Vick SC, Potchen NB, Talavera IC, Warrier L, Dubrulle J, Schroeder LK, Elz A, Sowerby D, Saito A, Thomas KK, Mack M, Schiffer JT, McClelland RS, Jerome KR, Chohan BH, ...

Replaying germinal center evolution on a quantified affinity landscape.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Jun, 2025

DeWitt WS, Vora AA, Araki T, Galloway JG, Alkutkar T, Bortolatto J, Castro TBR, Dumm W, Jennings-Shaffer C, Jia T, Mesin L, Ozorowski G, Pae J, Ralph DK, Bloom JD, Nourmohammad A, Song YS, Ward AB, Starr TN, Matsen FA, ...