The UNC Graduate School has just announced that Kari Debbink, who did her graduate work in Ralph Baric’s lab, is one of the winners of the 2014 Impact Awards. The Impact Awards recognize outstanding graduate students in a wide variety of research areas and are privately funded each year through the Graduate Education Advancement Board. … Read more

A UNC News feature on M&I Professor Bruce Cairns, candidate for UNC Faculty Chair; see the article at the link below. Voting faculty will have the opportunity to choose Bruce during an online election this week, and you can refer to a voter’s guide (http://tinyurl.com/mucvv6o) with summaries of UNC committee candidates, including M&I’s Kristina Abel … Read more

In vitro and in vivo model systems of respiratory syncytial virus infection are featured in a new article from the lab of Ray Pickles. M&I postdoc Rachael Liesman is the lead author of this study that appears in the April issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation (http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72948) See the UNC News article at the … Read more

Recognizing the limitations associated with current chimeric human-murine liver mouse models for studying hepatitis B virus infection and immunity, Lishan Su’s group has developed a humanized mouse with both human immune system and liver cells. See their new PLOS Pathogens article at the link below. http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1004032

An engaging interview with M&I faculty member Rita Tamayo, talking about choices in her life, creativity and science, and her research on Vibrio cholerae and Clostridium difficile. See the “Five Questions” article by Mark Derewicz at the link below.   Breaking Down Bacteria

The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), just announced that M&I Professor Ron Swanstrom (http://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/faculty/virology/ronald-i-swanstrom-ph-d) has been elected as one of the 2014 Fellows. Selection for fellowship is a highly competitive annual peer review process, based on scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced … Read more

  In early April, the Department of Microbiology & Immunology began the final phase of moving out of its 36-year home in the Mary Ellen Jones Building. The migration began last year with departmental labs moving to the 9th floor of the completely renovated Burnett Womack Building. The rest of the Department’s space will be … Read more

Graduate student Stephani Page (Bob Bourret’s lab) has rocketed into the upper Twittersphere by building a community of like-minded colleagues based on a new hashtag. It’s all explained in David Zax’s article at the link below. Also see previous discussions about Stephani’s blogs for Nature #BLACKandSTEM: The Hashtag As Community

A new study from Jenny Ting’s lab, now available online at the Immunity journal website, demonstrates how interactions between an NLR protein (NLRC3) and an intracellular DNA sensor (STING) modulate innate immune activation in response to DNA viruses. M&I LinkedIn Group member Lu Zhang is the lead author of the study, and co-authors include members … Read more

The latest issue of Blue & White, a student-run monthly magazine, has a nice biographical feature on M&I Professor Mike Cohen. See the story by UNC senior Abigail Brewer at the link below. http://blueandwhitemag.com/issues/volume-16-issue-3-december-2013-january-2014/making-breakthrough/