Undergraduate Student Accomplishments

• Congratulations to Jennifer King, BS Microbiology, December of 2005.  She will be starting Medical School in fall 2007 at East Carolina University. She was awarded the Brody Scholarship for her medical education.

  
  
• Anthony (Tony) Szempruch was awarded an ASM Travel Grant to attend this years' ASM meeting.  Tony will be presenting a poster entitled "Microbial Mediation of Calcium Carbonate Precipitation Under Controlled Modern and Simulated Cretaceous Environmental Conditions" at the meeting. Tony has conducted the research described in his poster presentation in collaboration with Dr. Mary Schweitzer from the Department of Marine Earth and Atmospheric Studies and has been doing the bacterial growth studies in Dr. Amy Grunden's lab.
  
  
• Jonathan R. Lucking, graduating senior in Microbiology, presented the results of his research in the 2 nd Annual ACC Undergraduate Research Conference, held this April in Charlottesville , VA. Each ACC University brought four students to give 15-minute oral presentations of their work. Jonathan's research presentation was titled, Possible Estrogen Response Element of the Breast Cancer Resistance Protein. His research mentors were Dr. David Miller, Dr. Bjoer Bauer and Dr. Anika Hartz of the NIEHS.
  
  
• Daniel L Cavanaugh and Dr. Mark Keen have won the 2005 American Society for Microbiology MicrobeLibary Visual Resource Editor's Choice Award. The winning resource is "The Gram Stain: An Animated Approach", by Daniel L. Cavanaugh and Mark G. Keen.
  

• Four of our microbiology students, Leslie Hewes, Kristy Lamb, Caroline Smith, and Timothy Werlau were honored at the The 15th Annual NC State University Undergraduate Research Symposium. more...
  
• North Carolina State University undergraduate Jessica Badger of Fayetteville, a junior majoring in microbiology, has won a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for the 2006-07 academic year.   more...

Graduate Student Accomplishments

• Denise Aslett - GAANN Biotechnology Fellowship 2005-2007
• Carolyn Culver - George H. Hitchings New Investigator Award in Health Research & Training
• Carolyn Culver - Preparing the Professoriate Program
• Alice Lee - Preparing the Professoriate Program

Alumni Accomplishments

Congratulations Outstanding Alumni Award Recipients

• Department of Microbiology Outstanding Alumnus Award for 2006: 
  Dr. John Ezzell received his MS in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1976, both under the mentorship of Dr. Walt Dobrogosz.  Dr. Ezzell continued working with Dr. Dobrogosz as a postdoctoral fellow for an additional 2 years.  Since leaving NC State, Dr. Ezzell has spent his professional career at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, where he has served as Chief of the Special Pathogens Branch and as a Senior Scientist.  He has published over 60 articles, primarily on anthrax.  Dr. Ezzell is currently serving on the Master Planning Committee for the National Interagency Biodefense Campus being built at Fort Detrick.
  
• College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Young Alumnus Award for 2006:  Amanda Pugh Patnaud, BS class of 1998, worked in the Department of Microbiology during her entire undergraduate career, first as a laboratory assistant and then as laboratory preparator. After graduation, Ms Patnaud went to work at Covance Biotechnology Services (now Diosynth) as a Manufacturing Associate in Large Scale Fermentation, where she was promoted to Supervisor of Fermentation and then Coordinator, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Operations. In 2004, Amanda moved on to Wyeth Vaccines in Sanford, NC where she is presently serving as Compliance Engineer
  
• more...

Faculty Accomplishments

• Bourne, N, Scholle, F., Silva, M. C., Rossi, S. L., Dewsbury, N, Judy
  B., De Aguiar, J.B., Leon, M. A.., Estes, D. M., Fayzulin, R., and Peter
  W. Mason. 2007. Early production of type I interferon during West Nile
  virus infection: role for lymphoid tissues in IRF3-independent
  interferon production. /Journal of Virology, /Vol 81, September 2007, p.
  9100-9108
  
• Carroll IM, Andrus JM, Bruno-Barcena JM, Klaenhammer TR, Hassan HM, Threadgill DS.  The Anti-inflammatory Properties of Lactobacillus gasseri Expressing Manganese Superoxide Dismutase (MnSOD) Using the Interleukin 10-Deficient Mouse Model of Colitis. Am J Physiol Gastrointest
  Liver Physiol.  Available on line as "Epub ahead of print" starting July 19, 2007.
  
• Hamer, L.: University-industry alliances: A foundation for innovative business and science education in emerging professional graduate programs. Journal of the Academy of Business Education, pp 24-30 (Spring 2007).
  
• Ryan C. Fink, Matthew R. Evans, Steffen Porwollik, Andres
  Vazquez-Torres, Jessica Jones-Carson, Bryan Troxell, Stephen J. Libby,
  Michael McClelland, and Hosni M. Hassan.  FNR Is a Global Regulator of Virulence and Anaerobic Metabolism in Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium (ATCC 14028s).  J. Bacteriol. 2007 189: 2262-2273.
  http://jb.asm.org/content/vol189/issue6/index.dtl#GENE_REGULATION
  
• News Release:  Bacterial Virus Gene Confers Disease Resistance in Tall Fescue Grass
  
  
  
  Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that inserting a specific gene from a bacterial virus into tall fescue grass makes the grass resistant to two of its biggest enemies. more...
  
• Dong S, Shew HD, Tredway LP, Lu J, Sivamani E, Miller ES, Qu R. Expression of the bacteriophage T4 lysozyme gene in tall fescue confers resistance to gray leaf spot and brown patch diseases. Transgenic Res. 2007 Feb 2;
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/82u1382762466n1v/.
  

• News Release: Centennial Campus Collaboration May Yield Benefit For Flu Sufferers
  

  Dr. Scott Laster

  Can a cancer drug reduce the sometimes severe symptoms of various forms of influenza, possibly even the dreaded avian flu? How does a company focused on cancer research collaborate with an immunologist interested in controlling the effects of inflammation in diseases? more...
  

• Leontis, N.B., Altman, R., Berman, H., Brenner, S.E., Brown, J.W., Engelke, D., Harvey, S.C., Holbrook, S.R., Jossinet, F., Lewis, S.E., Major, F., Methews, D.H., Richardson, J., Williamson, J.R., and Westhof, E. 2006 The RNA Ontology Consortium: An open invitation to the RNA community. RNA 12:533-541
  

• Fayzulin, R., F. Scholle, O. Petrakova, I. Frolov, and PW Mason. Virology. 2006 Jul 20;351(1):196-209. Evaluation of replicative capacity and genetic stability of West Nile virus replicons using highly efficient packaging cell lines.
  

• Azcarate-Peril, M.A., J.M. Burno-Barcena, H.M. Hassan and T.R. Klaenhammer. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2006 Mar;72(3):1891-9. Transcriptional and functional analysis of oxalyl-coenzyme A (CoA) decarboxylase and formyl-CoA transferase genes from Lactobacillus acidophilus.
  

• Hyman, M.R. and E.L. Johnson. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2006 Jan;72(1):950-2. Propane and n-butane oxidation by Pseudomonas putida GPo1.

Staff Accomplishments

• Cindy Whitehead participated in the "Opening Doors:  A Personal and Professional Journey" workshop on diversity, sponsored by CALS.

Grants Awarded

• Dr. Michael Sikes - National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), "Promoter-dependent epigenetic regulation of V(D)J recombination."
• Frank Scholle - Subcontract from UTMB Galveston on NIAID R21 award:
  “Dendritic cell targeting enhances flavivirus vaccine efficacy.”
• Dr. Amy Grunden (with Dr. Wendy Boss, Botany) - NASA's National Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC),"Redesigning Life for Mars."
• Dr. Scott Laster - Erimos Pharmaceutical, "The Ability of NDGA and its Derivatives to Inhibit TNF-induced Apoptosis and Inflamation."