Microbiology, Infection & Immunity

To understand diverse microorganisms, their pathogenesis and resultant immune responses, research in MCB probes microbial physiology, the composition and function of microbiomes, innate and adaptive immunity, and translational strategies to predict infection epidemics, design better therapies and reengineer host and microbe for improved health and industry.

Suggested Courses

Autumn

MCB 532
Human Pathogenic Viruses

Micro 540
Graduate Virology

IMMUN 537
Immunological Methods

winter

PABIO 552
Cell Biology of Human Pathogens and Disease

CONJ 544
Protein Structure, Modification and Regulation

spring

MICROM 553
Molecular interactions of bacteria with their hosts

CONJ 549
Microbial Population Biology

Dr. Harmit Malik, an HHMI investigator, explores how organisms create and resolve conflict

When small things matter

Seattle MCB comprises Benaroya Research Institute, which is a leader in autoimmune diseases, the Center for Infectious Disease Research, which is focused on HIV/AIDS, tubercuolosis, malaria and emerging infectious diseases, and the Institute for Systems Biology, which explores environmental microbes and the host-pathogen interface. The UW Department of Microbiology recently celebrated its centennial in 2015 and UW ranks #3 in Microbiology graduate studies and #6 in Immunology graduate studies according to US News and World Report. With the Gates Foundation nearby, Seattle MCB is a world-leading hub for infectious diseases research.

Faculty Area Directors: Michael Lagunoff, Andrew Oberst

Student Area Directors: Kristen Mittelsteadt, Nicholas Maurice

Area Of interest Faculty

Featured Research

Area Directors

Faculty Area Directors: Michael Lagunoff, Andrew Oberst

Student Area Directors: Amin Addetia, Tayla Olsen

Lab Openings

Dudley Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Yeast, Genetics, Genomics, Technology Development, Biofilm formation, Antifungal drugs

Greninger Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

clinical virology, host-virus interactions, viral evolution

Aitchison Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

systems cell biology, host-pathogen interactions, infectious diseases

Paredez Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

Giardia, parasite, actin, rac, Rho GTPase, signaling, evolutionary cell biology, cysts, trafficking, cytokinesis, microscopy, biochemistry

Geballe Lab:
Spring, Winter

virus, translation

Steinbrenner Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter

plant cell surface receptors, immunity, herbivores, pathogens

Bettelli Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Autoimmunity, Neuroimmunology

Iritani Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

B and T cell development, lymphoma, cancer, Myc, Nckap1l, Hem1, Fnip1, metabolism

Bornfeldt Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Atherosclerosis, diabetes, lipids, immune cells, mass spectrometry, human translational research

Traxler Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Summer, Permanent Position

bacterial conjugation, antibiotic resistance, protein biogenesis,

Giachelli Lab:
Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

vascular calcification, phosphate, calcific aortic valve disease, engineered osteoclasts

Dandekar Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter

quorum sensing, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, sociomicrobiology, cooperation

Blanco-Melo Lab:
Spring, Summer, Permanent Position

Innate immunity, Bioinformatics, Paleovirology

Rawlings Lab:
Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

Gene editing, Immunotherapies, B and T cells

Sherman Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

Tb Pathogenesis, Systems Biology

Veesler Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Cryo-electron microscopy, viruses, viral fusion proteins, bacterial secretion systems, ion channels,vaccine design, structure-based drug design

Warren Lab:
Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

renal cell carcinoma, lymphoma, kaposii sarcoma, cancer immunotherapy, global oncology

Elkon Lab:
All Quarters

lupus, interferon, cell death, inflamamtion

Matsen Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

adaptive immune receptors, phylogenetics, evolution

Greenberg Lab:
Spring, Winter

Bacterial communication, evolution of cooperation, quorum sensing,

Newell Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Human Immunology, T cell, antigen-specificity, mass cytometry, high dimensional single cell analysis

Sokurenko Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Fang Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Salmonella, E. coli, macrophages, phagocyte, nitric oxide, counter-silencing, antibiotic resistance, complement, microbiome, humanized mice, pathogenesis, bacteria, infection

Fuller Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Vaccines, DNA vaccines, RNA vaccines, de novo design, nonhuman primate, SIV, HIV, influenza, SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis B, Zika

Gerner Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Innate immunity, adaptive immunity, vaccine development, cancer, dendritic cells, T cells, microscopy, imaging, lymph nodes

Grundner Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Global Health, Infectious Disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Latency, Genomics, Phosphosignaling

Gu Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

Protein-protein interaction, Protein Barcoding, In Situ Sequencing

Hamerman Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

innate immunity, macrophages, inflammation, dendritic cells, myeloid development, autoimmunity

Headley Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Intravital Microscopy, Lung Metastasis, Immune System, Myeloid, , Monocytes, Macrophages, Dendritic Cells

Malik Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

centromeres, heterochromatin, Drosophila, viruses, budding yeast, fission yeast, mitochondria, speciation, retroelements, histone variants, Tetrahymena, bacteria, phage, protein, evolution, cytoskeleton, multigene families, histones

Bloom Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Computational Biology

Dudakov Lab:
Spring, Winter

Thymus, T cell development, Regeneration, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Smith Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

virology, innate immunity, host-pathogen interactions

Talbot Lab:
Spring, Summer, Permanent Position

neuroscience, immunology, neuroimmunology, host-microbiota interactions, gastroenterology

Woodward Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

bacterial pathogenesis, innate immunity, cyclic dinucleotides, c-di-AMP

Kollman Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Cryo-EM, structural biology, cytoskeleton, metabolism, X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy

Hyde Lab:
Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

alphavirus, RNA structure, innate immunity

Lund Lab:
Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

Virus infection, HSV-2, HIV-1, West Nile virus, SARS-CoV-2, Regulatory T cell, Tissue-resident memory T cell, PrEP

Ray Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

autoimmunity, genetic variation, T cells, enhancer biology

Zimring Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Transfusion, Red Blood Cells, Platelets, Alloimmunization, Hemolytic Transfusion Reactions, Blood Storage, Bone Marrow Transplantation

Barry Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Immunotherapy, Innate Immunity, Cancer Immunology

Lee Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Virus, membrane fusion, cryo-EM, glycoproteins, dynamics, structure, HIV, influenza, membranes, fusion proteins, vaccines, antibodies, immunology, transmission, mass spectrometry

Koch Lab:
Permanent Position

Immunity, Microbiota, Maternal-Offspring Interactions

Kueh Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

Immunology, stem cell biology, quantitative biology, systems biology, synthetic biology, live-cell imaging,

Urdahl Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Lagunoff Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

virus, Kaposi's Sarcoma, Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, KSHV, viral oncogenesis, cancer, herpesvirus, virology, signal transduction, metabolism, metabolomics, transcriptomics, endothelial cell, viral immunology, KS,

Rajagopal Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Group B streptococcus, GBS, Staphylococcus aureus, S. aureus

Cohn Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

HIV, Latent reservoir, HIV latency, CD4+ T cells

Crisa Lab:
Summer, Winter

innate immunity, myeloid cells, pancreatic islets, diabetes

Goo Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

antibodies, viruses, humoral immunity

Hoffman Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

microbiology, microbiome, small colony variant, pediatric, children

Stamatatos Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

B cells, antibodies, vaccines, HIV-1, SARS-CoV-2

McGuire Lab:
Autumn, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

Antibodies, vaccines, HIV-1, EBV

Meeske Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

CRISPR, cas13, bacteriophage, RNA, dormancy

Emerman Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

HIV, virology, evolution, innate immunity, restriction factors, lentiviruses, viruses, latency

Merz Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

membrane, cell, organelle, endosome, lysosome, golgi, fusion, SNARE, Rab, tether, biophysics, genetics, yeast, Saccharomyces

Metzger Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Transmissible cancer, retroelements, changing genomes

Campbell Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

T cells, autoimmunity, immune regulation

Mougous Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

bacteria, microbiome, pathogenesis, signaling, protein secretion, regulation

Guo Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

DNA supercoiling, replication, nucleoid structuring proteins, topoisomerase, Hi-C

Dey Lab:
All Quarters

microbiome, bile acids, gut motility, cancer

Oberst Lab:
All Quarters

apoptosis, programmed necrosis, necroptosis, caspases, pyroptosis

Harrison Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Mucosal immunology, Adaptive Immunity, Commensal microbiota, Antigen-specificity, T cell, B cell

Parsek Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Biofilms, quorum sensing, bacterial pathogenesis

Greenberg Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

T cell, immunology, Cancer biology, Cell therapy, Genetic engineering

Nghiem Lab:
Summer, Permanent Position

Merkel cell carcinoma, merkel polyomavirus, immunotherapy, oncoprotein

Mitchell Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Innate immunity, inflammasomes, host-pathogen evolution, virology, pathogenesis

Reniere Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

bacteria, pathogenesis, signaling, virulence regulation

James Lab:
Spring, Summer, Permanent Position

B cells, immunology, lymphoma, signaling, engineering

Strong Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

molecular immunology, vaccinology, biophysics, protein design, protein expression, x-ray crystallography, surface plasmon resonance, biacore

McLaughlin Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Genome Evolution, Genome Defense, Transposons, Coevolution, Genetic Conflict, Viruses, Innate Immune System, Autoimmune Disease, Lupus, Cancer

Bumgarner Lab:
All Quarters

Bioformatics, host-virus interactions, genomics, expression analysis, microarrays

Rongvaux Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Immunity, Innate immunity, Infection, Immuno-oncology

Salama Lab:
Autumn, Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

H. pylori, gastric cancer, host-pathogen interactions, bacterial genetics

Savan Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

RNA regulation, gene expression, antiviral response

Srivastava Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

Adoptive T cell therapy, CAR-T cells, immunology

Jackson Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

B cell, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), Germinal Centers (GC)

Sodora Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

HIV, SIV, immune activation, viral dissemination

Stetson Lab:
Spring, Winter, Permanent Position

Innate immunity, nucleic acid detection, autoimmune disease,

Taylor Lab:
Spring, Summer, Winter, Permanent Position

Thomas Lab:
All Quarters

Biophysics, Biomechanics, Infection, Thrombosis, Hemostasis, Protein Design, Computational Biology

Shou Lab:
All Quarters, Permanent Position

evolution, cooperation, mathematical modeling, quantitative biology

News & Events

Upcoming Event

Currently no scheduled event for Microbiology, Infection & Immunity. Please review the calendar for a full list of upcoming events.

Bacteria can cause cancer?!