Microbiology and Immunology
Master of Science
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
The Department of Microbiology and Immunology provides a stimulating environment in which to pursue a graduate or undergraduate research program. Our faculty is internationally recognized for contributions in microbiology, molecular biology and immunology. Students will have the opportunity to experience the most up to date molecular approaches to the study of problems in microbiology and immunology. The department has excellent facilities and a strong support staff to backup the research programs.
Recent developments in immunology, molecular biology and biotechnology have opened many new possibilities in industry and medicine for the application of microbial-based technologies. Thus the opportunities for qualified students will continue to increase in both universities and industry. The Department has established itself as a leading centre for immunology, recombinant DNA technology and for research into infectious diseases. Another notable research field is applied and environmental microbiology, with the focus mainly on sources of environmental problems and solutions involving microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and algae). Despite their small size, microbes exert a huge influence on all terrestrial and aquatic environments thereby affecting all plants and animals, including humans. As both academic and industrial research opportunities abound in such areas as Biotechnology, Bioremediation, Agriculture, and Food Processing, the career outlook for graduates from the Department is excellent.
Graduate Degree Programs
Open Research Positions
This list of possible research projects is non-exhaustive. It only shows positions that are specifically advertised in the G+PS website.
Research Supervisors
| Name | Research Interests |
|---|---|
| Beatty, John | Bacteria; Molecular Genetics; Regulation; Molecular Structure and Sizing; Gene transfer mediated by virus-like particles; Light-driven reactions in photosynthesis proteins; Applications of photosynthesis proteins to solar energy |
| Crowe, Sean | Geobiology, biogeochemistry, microbial evolution |
| Eltis, Lindsay | Biochemistry; Genomics; Immunology; Microbiology; Bacterial catabolism of steroids and lignin; biocatalyst development; Enzymes and Proteins; Metabolism (Living Organisms); Mycobacterium tuberculosis |
| Fernandez, Rachel | Bordetella pertusis, whooping cough, lipopolysaccharide |
| Finlay, B Brett | Infectious agents, bacteria, microbial infections and how humans react to it |
| Gaynor, Erin | Molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis, foodborne human pathogen, Campylobacter jejuni |
| Gold, Michael | understanding cell signaling, morphology, trafficking, and effector function of immune cells and tumour cells |
| Hallam, Steven | methanogenesis, methane oxidation, methyl coenzyme M reductase, metagenomics, environmental microbiology, genomics, proteomics, microbial ecology, systems biology, archaea, energy, bioinformatics, Microbial communities, construction and interpretation of environmental genomic libraries, generation of computational tools and workflows for taxonomic and functional binning, population genome assembly, and comparative community analysis, development and functional screens to interrogate environmental genomic libraries for bioactive small molecules and biocatalysis |
| Hancock, Robert E | Cationic Antimicrobial Peptides, Host Defence Peptides and Innate Immunity, Functional Genomics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Regulation of Antibiotic Resistance, Array Data, Self-promoted uptake hypothesis |
| Haney, Cara | genetic and metabolic factors that regulate assembly of host-associated microbial communities ( |
| Harder, Kenneth | Host-pathogen, tumours, infection, immunity, atherosclerosis, role of macrophages in inflammation |
| Hirst, Martin | Bioinformatics; Clinical oncology; Genomics; Immunology; Microbiology; Carcinogenesis; Cellular Differentiation; Epigenomics; Leukemia; Molecular Genetics |
| Horwitz, Marc | Mechanisms of viral-induced immune disease in a variety of complex chronic disorders |
| Jean, Francois | Medical virology; Protein trafficking in cell biology; Proteomics; Enzymes (including kinetics and mechanisms, and biocatalyst); Organelle function; Virology; Systems biology; Cellular virology; Emerging human viruses; COVID-19; Host-virus interactions; Broad-based antiviral agents; Antiviral agents; Natural products as antiviral agents; Lipid-modulating drugs; Cellular protease inhibitors; Viral protease inhibitors; Human coronaviruses; SARS-CoV-2; Human flaviviruses; Dengue virus; Zika virus; West Nile virus; Influenza A virus; Human microRNAs; Therapeutic microRNA; Viral and cellular biomarkers; Molecular diagnostics for detecting viral infection; Circulating exosomes; Exosomal microRNAs; Proteomics-based technologies; Multiplexed and Mass Spectrometric quantitation assays |
| Jefferies, Wilfred Arthur | Iron transport molecules |
| Johnson, Pauline | Diseases of the Immune System; Immunology; Inflammation; Immune-cancer interactions; Innate immunity; Macrophages and myeloid cells |
| Kronstad, James | Bioinformatics; Immunology; Microbiology; Plant biology; Fungal diseases of plants; Genomics and Proteomics; Medical Mycology; Molecular Genetics; Pathogenesis of infectious diseases; Plant-Microbe Interactions |
| Mohn, William | pollutant biodegradation, pollutant bioremediation, biological treatment of forest industry effluents and wastes, microbial ecology, environmental biotechnology, forest soil microbial ecology, tuberculosis, microbial genomics, Microbial ecology |
| Murphy, Michael | Bioinformatics; Immunology; Microbiology; Alternatives to antibiotics; Bacterial pathogenesis; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Functional and Structural Proteomics; Microbial metal metabolism |
| Osborne, Lisa | influence that the bacteria that live on and in our intestines, lungs and skin have on human health; understanding how the host recognizes the diverse species that reside in the gut - from microscopic viruses to large, multicellular helminthic worms - and tailors an immune response of the appropriate scope and magnitude necessary to achieve homeostasis |
| Thompson, Charles | Regulation of bacterial gene expression |
| Tocheva, Elitza | Microbiology; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Functional and Structural Proteomics; Microbial Ultrastructure; Cryo-electron tomography and Structural Biology; bacterial physiology; Microbial Diversity; Secretion systems and Mechanisms of pathogenesis; Novel bacterial phyla |
| Tokuyama, Maria | Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), Chronic interaction between viruses and the immune system |
| Tropini, Carolina | Immunology; Medical and biomedical engineering; Microbiology; Bacteria; Bacteriophages; Bioengineering; Bioinformatics; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Biophysics; Gut microbiota; Inflammatory bowel disease |
