News

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.

The College of Natural Science’s annual event honored its outstanding alumni, faculty and students.

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.

Microbes are vital to maintaining healthy, fertile soil, which, in turn, is vital to the overall health of ecosystems. But what happens to these microbes when humans cause long-term damage to the environment?Michigan State University researchers have provided new answers to that question by analyzing soil microbes near a mine fire that’s been burning for more than 60 years.

Ask someone what they think of when they hear the phrase “bile acids,” and you might get a few unpleasant answers.  Ask Robert Quinn, assistant professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology housed in the College of Natural Science, and you’ll kickstart a conversation about some of the most versatile and crucial actors in the human gut. 

“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.

The department formerly known as MMG — the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics — has officially changed its name to the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, or MGI.

   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.”

Matt Schnizlein, Ph.D., is a second-year Postdoctoral Candidate in MGI whose small business, Inktree Miniatures, creates 3D resin models of everything from fantastical creatures to scientific marvels.

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."

MGI's James Tiedje, Ph.D., was named one of the world's most cited researchers.