Jeffrey Tabor
Rice University, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Bacteria constantly sense their surroundings and change their behavior to survive, whether they face starvation, antibiotics, or attack by the human immune system. These responses let bacteria build tough biofilms, tolerate drugs, and cause disease.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biomedical Engineering
Biology
- Topics
optogenetics
gene regulatory networks
transcription factors
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Test how two Bacillus subtilis stress-response gene networks decode time-varying activity of their main transcription factors, using an optogenetic system to deliver constant or oscillatory light inputs.
- Measure how Salmonella Typhimurium PhoQ, a membrane sensor of antimicrobial peptides, responds to nearly all human antimicrobial peptides and thousands of mutants using SLAY-TCS, which pairs bacterial peptide display with cell sorting and DNA sequencing.
- Determine how PhoQ sensing specificity evolved across diverse pathogens by combining SLAY-TCS screens with mutational analysis of the PhoQ protein.
- Identify peptide inhibitors of PhoQ at large scale and test whether the strongest block Salmonella Typhimurium virulence in primary mouse macrophages.
- Build a low-cost "Sporograph" optogenetics module in which high-school students induce visible sporulation and biofilm reporter proteins on bacterial agar plates with light.
More about the research
The research examines the signaling and gene-control pathways behind such decisions, using light-controlled genetics in one project and very large-scale peptide screening in another.
Why it matters
Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae such as Salmonella Typhimurium cause roughly 200,000 infections and 10,000 deaths annually in the United States. Mapping which immune peptides the PhoQ sensor detects could explain how these bacteria survive immune attack, and peptides that jam this sensor could become starting points for new antibacterial drugs. The bacterial stress-response work may also inform efforts against biofilms and antibiotic tolerance.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Elizabeth Libby
Northeastern University, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Quantitatively dissect how conserved Hanks-type serine/threonine kinase–phosphatase systems in Bacillus subtilis are wired, and how that architecture generates rare single cells with extreme phenotypes such as antibiotic resistance.
Leigh Knodler
University of Vermont, VT·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine whether nine genes in the 40-kilobase type III secretion gene cluster on the Providencia alcalifaciens plasmid drive invasion of host cells, combining computational prediction, in vitro biochemistry and infection of cultured non-phagocytic cells.
Seunghyun Sim
University of California-Irvine, CA·Chemistry·Early-career
Build a high-throughput screen for enzyme activity using fluorescence-activated cell sorting, an instrument that sorts single particles by brightness, together with engineered chemical probes that fluoresce only when the displayed enzyme turns over its substrate.
The school
Rice University: 24 labs on PI Pages, $278M a year on research, 267 research doctorates a year.
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