Members
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John Mekalanos
Principal Investigator
John Mekalanos is the Lehman Professor at Harvard Medical School, has served as Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology (formerly Microbiology and Molecular Genetics) since 1996. Dr. Mekalanos has received many honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Microbiology, the Eli Lilly Award, AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, and City of Medicine Award. In 2012 he was chosen as the first recipient of the Drexel Medicine Prize in Infectious Disease and received the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award for Biomedical Research. He has been a member of the FDA Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biologics and has consulted for numerous governmental and private agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, The International Vaccine Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, Massachusetts Public Health Biological Laboratories, and the US-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program. His research spans multiple facets of bacterial pathogenesis with an emphasis on using genetic and functional genomic approaches to explore virulence gene regulation and host-pathogen interactions. His laboratory has provided many genetic tools that have been successfully used in the field for decades, establishing fundamentally new approaches to understanding bacterial virulence from the gene to the genomic levels. Dr. Mekalanos has served on the dissertation advisory committees of more than 30 students, mentored 14 graduate students in his own laboratory and trained 56 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom hold positions and appointments at major academic and research institutions, including Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Dartmouth Medical School, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at San Antonio, at Brownsville, and at Tyler, University of California at Berkeley, at San Diego, and at Santa Barbara, the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, Northwestern University, Biozentrum, Institut Pasteur, and Novartis. The Mekalanos group has provided classic insights, such as the identification of the regulatory factors that control production of both cholera toxin and the intestinal colonization factor TCP, identification of the filamentous bacteriophage that carries the genes for cholera toxin, development of reporters for virulence gene expression in vivo, and identification of small molecules that inhibit virulence. More recently, the Mekalanos laboratory reported the discovery of the Type VI secretion system and has made dramatic progress in defining how this novel organelle dynamically functions. His group has contributed to the development of prototype vaccines effective against cholera, typhoid, anthrax and other encapsulated microorganisms, as well as to finding evidence that bacteriophages control cholera epidemics in natural endemic settings. -
Sarah Bier
Graduate Student
I come from the Chicago area, where I completed my B.A. in Biology and Physiology at Northwestern University. During undergrad, I worked with Legionella pneumophila to characterize effectors from its Type II and Type IV Secretion Systems. I am a graduate student in Harvard's Biological and Biomedical Sciences program, and joined the Mekalanos Lab for my thesis work. I am interested in accessory processes that modulate Type VI Secretion System activity and target selection, and how these mechanisms define microbial communities -
Florencia Caro
Postdoctoral Fellow
I come from Argentina, where I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Buenos Aires. For my PhD I joined the DeRisi lab at the University of California, San Francisco. My thesis work was centered on measuring mRNA translation on a genome-wide level in the Malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum using ribosome profiling. My current work in the Mekalanos lab is centered on uncovering the genome-wide landscape of genetic interactions in V. cholerae and assessing the effects of essential gene depletion on bacteria survival. -
Mareike Lembke
Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in Germany and received my PhD in Microbiology at the University of Graz, Austria, in the Reidl lab with a focus on V. cholerae virulence gene regulation. Equipped with the fascination for Vibrio and skills imparted by a former Mekalanos trainee, I proceed in the pathogenesis field. In the Mekalanos lab, I am interested in understanding the impact of interbacterial warfare on the host mucosal immune response and its role in the virulence of V. cholerae. -
Bradley Meader
Research Assistant
I graduated from Syracuse University (Biochemistry, B.S. & Neuroscience, B.S.) in 2018. As an undergraduate, I worked in the lab of Dr. William Kerr at Upstate Medical University to characterize the role of the immune system in obesity development. I joined the Mekalanos lab in the fall of 2018. I’m interested in examining innate immune responses to V. cholerae and using CRISPRi systems to find novel antibiotic targets in P. aeruginosa. -
Giulia Oliva
Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in Italy, where I completed a B.S and a M.S in Biotechnology at the University of Palermo. I received my Ph.D. in Microbiology in Carmen Buchrieser’s laboratory at the Pasteur Institute, Paris. My doctoral work focused on deciphering virulence gene regulation mediated by non-coding RNAs in Legionella pneumophila. As a post-doc in the Mekalanos lab, I am interested in developing engineered bacterial therapeutics as a new platform for the treatment of human diseases. -
William Robins
Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. BSc in Zoology/Biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma and PhD in Molecular Biology from UT Austin. I arrived in the Mekalanos lab with goals for studying the role of phage during cholera outbreaks and host-acquired V.cholerae infections using metagenomics. I've extended this work to examine the role of commensals and other bacteria and the mechanisms/strategies they use to modify the bacterial community and alter the impact of pathogens. Using bacteria or protein targets, I am implementing novel technologies and approaches in order to develop therapeutics using modified bacteria and/or small molecules. -
Jonida Toska
Research Assistant
I joined the Mekalanos lab in June of 2013 as a Research Assistant. I manage all common lab supply ordering as well as being a liaison for the lab to various laboratory safety offices on campus ensuring that everything runs smoothly. I am working on further understanding Type VI secretion system dynamics in both P. aeruginosa and V. cholerae using imaging, flow cytometry and various molecular biology techniques.