Researchers at Michigan State University have found a new angle to promote cooperation — artificial intelligence (AI). The results of this study are published in npj Complexity.
STREAMS project brings together researchers from around the world to improve how microbiome studies are reported.
Barrick re-joins the MSU community to continue a landmark experiment and expand his research on honeybee microbiomes.
Grassroots outreach brings science, mentorship, and opportunity to Flint elementary schools.
Godfrey is a third-year doctoral student in Andrew Olive’s lab, and he is working to understand the mechanisms behind lung inflammation.
Thirty-three exceptional MGI students were honored at a departmental awards ceremony on April 22.
Plant scientists from labs and research groups across MSU will present 'The World of Plants,' a showcase featuring 17 unique booths dedicated to different aspects of plant science, at the 2025 SciFest STEAM Expo Days.
Researchers at MSU and the Univ. of Wisconsin have uncovered a new and important insight about a rare immune disorder. WHIM syndrome – Warts, Hypogammaglobulinemia, Infections, and Myelokathexis – can lead to conditions such as persistent skin and genital warts and increased risk of HPV-related cancer. Researchers have previously determined that WHIM is caused by a mutation in a gene known as CXCR4.
Researchers confirmed that mice with the WHIM-causing CXCR4 mutation accurately mimic the human disease. These WHIM mice showed higher susceptibility to HPV-like infections (MmuPV1) at low virus doses, developed more and larger warts, and had impaired immune cell responses.
Through bone marrow transplants, the researchers demonstrated that the mutation in immune cells directly causes the increased risk of viral infection in WHIM mice. Transplanting healthy bone marrow into WHIM mice prevented new infections and restored immune responses.
The study paves the way for innovative treatments like bone marrow editing to restore immune function in WHIM patients without requiring harmful chemotherapy or radiation. This preclinical model offers insights into both WHIM disease and HPV infection mechanisms in general.
Victor DiRita, the Rudolph Hugh Endowed Chair and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, has been honored as one of the winners of the 2024 Outstanding Supervisor Award from the MSU office of University Health and Wellbeing.
Sean Crosson, a Rudolph Hugh endowed professor in Michigan State University's Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology received a $2.4 million grant from the NIH to study Brucella abortus, the bacterium responsible for brucellosis, also known as Bang’s disease.
Crosson’s research aims to understand the General Stress Response of Brucella abortus, which allows it to survive in the host by evading immune cells. This could lead to the development of better vaccines for wildlife that could prevent transmission to livestock.
The project has three aims: studying a photosensing protein in Brucella, understanding a protein that stabilizes the bacterial cell envelope, and investigating the role of non-coding RNAs in Brucella’s ability to colonize the host.
Professor Richard Lenski, a Michigan State University Hannah Distinguished Professor in the department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, has been awarded the Microbiology Society Prize Medal 2025. The medal is awarded to an outstanding microbiologist who is a global leader in their field and whose work has had significant impact in microbiology and beyond.
MGI researchers have made a fundamental discovery about Campylobacter Jejuni.
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, MSU researchers Ritam Sinha, Victor DiRita, and colleagues explain that the way that our immune system responds to the presence of Campy creates the perfect environment for it to grow.
Dr. Parkin was selected by this year's CHM students to receive the 2024 Green Apple Award.
Chris Adami’s newest book, The Evolution of Biological Information, flew to the top of the Amazon Best Sellers list in information theory when it published earlier this year and remains there today.
“There’s a famous saying in biology which says, ‘Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution,’ and I have co-opted that statement and said that it is in light of the information,” says Adami, a professor in MSU’s Department of Microbiology, genetics, & Immunology.
Jade Le Bris, a first-year D.O. – Ph.D. student in MSU’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology has recently published her first novel, “All the Gold Between Us,” a fantasy inspired by Greek Mythology.
Sixty-three exceptional students from MSU’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology were honored at a departmental awards ceremony held on April 16 at the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building. More than 100 faculty, students, donors and parents joined to celebrate this year’s recipients.
Three members from the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, or MGI, were recently recognized with university-wide awards: MSU Research Foundation Professor Shannon Manning was awarded the William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award; Assistant Professor Andrew Olive was selected for the MSU Teacher-Scholar Award; and University Distinguished Professor Edward “Ned” Walker received the 2024 Ralph H. Smuckler Award for Advancing International Studies at MSU.
Marissa Malleck, a sophomore in MSU’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, has been awarded the 2022-23 Spartan Volunteer Service Award. The award, presented by the MSU President and the Center for Community Engaged Learning, recognizes students who participate in more than 100 hours of verified community-engaged learning or volunteering in a year.
Malleck volunteered for almost 820 hours last year, making her the student with the second-highest number of hours in the university.
In a commentary published in the journal Cell, a group of 24 transgender (and/or family members of transgender) scientists describe what it’s like to be a transgender person in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine, or STEMM.
One of the co-authors is Maeve McLaughlin. McLaughlin is a postdoctoral researcher in MSU’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology.
“You’d be surprised to learn how few technologies that have been researched in labs for years actually make it to market,” says Frank Urban, director of venture creation – life sciences for Spartan Innovations. “But without getting to the market, that research doesn’t play out into changing people’s lives.
“Dr. Abramovitch’s passion is not only to do tuberculosis research, but to drive that forward, to be a cause of change in the world.”
The latest issue of Science magazine has a long-format research article on the bacterial populations in an experiment started in 1988 by EEB and MGI faculty member Richard Lenski.
With a team of researchers from Spain, France, and Harvard, Lenski and colleagues used high-throughput genomic methods to analyze the fitness effects of hundreds of thousands of mutations in the E. coli bacteria, and how those effects changed over time as the experiment proceeded.
Richard Lenski, Ph.D., a Hannah Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, was awarded the 2024 Meritorious Faculty Award. The College of Natural Science gives this award annually to a faculty member who demonstrates excellence in the areas of teaching and research. The award recognizes those who “exemplify MSU’s commitment to the land-grant mission of teaching, research and outreach through their dedication to professional, community and/or MSU service.”
Congratulations to Elizabeth Heath-Heckman, Ph.D., who has received a prestigious 5-year, $1,934,000 Early Career Maximizing Investigators Research Award MIRA (R35) from the National Institutes of Health (specifically the National Institute of General Medical Sciences). The grant is entitled "Elucidating Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Cooperation in Animal-Bacterial Symbioses."
