Strassmann’s work investigates cooperative alliances that have occurred at several important steps in the evolution of life, and have proven evolutionarily and ecologically very successful. Studying how these alliances came to be, how conflicts are subsumed into cooperation, what conflicts remain, and how they influence sociality comprise her dominant research interests.
Past PMB Seminars
For a schedule of all Plant & Microbial Biology events, seminars, and lectures visit our calendar.
Jenny Mortimer: Sweet stories: characterizing and engineering plant glycans
My major research interest is plant cell wall biosynthesis and sphingolipid glycosylation. In particular my group is interested in understanding the function og glycosyltransferases, the regulation of nucleotide sugar metabolism and nucleotide sugar transporters, as well as developing tools for glycobiology.
Nina Salama: Kustu Lecture: Bacterial body building: mechanisms and consequences of Helicobacter pylori morphology
Nina Salama studies Helicobacter pylori, a stomach bacterium that infects half the world’s population and is associated with ulcers and gastric cancer — the third leading cancer killer worldwide. Her team found that H. pylori’s unique corkscrew shape allows the bug to colonize the stomach by burrowing into the mucus lining where it is protected from the acidic environment. They found a set of...
Dr. Fan Dai: ERG Colloquium: Fan Dai
California and China have a long-standing history of climate and environment partnership through the dozen MOUs between the governments, as well as policy exchange and joint research initiatives, ranging from air-quality, carbon market, energy efficiency, renewable energy innovation to long-term climate goal setting. What motivates and what has worked in such bilateral collaboration? What can the...
Peggy Hellweg: Earthquakes in our Backyard
The Hayward Fault, in our East Bay backyard, is a big earthquake hazard. What have we learned recently? What are we doing to improve earthquake outcomes? What can you do to be prepared?
Houra Merrikh: Replication-transcription conflicts and evolutionary mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance
Dr. Merrikh is part of the faculty at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biochemistry. As a mechanistic biologist and discovery scientist, Dr. Merrikh studies DNA replication, bacterial evolution and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance that span fundamental basic and clinically relevant microbial research.
Nigel Mouncey: One Small Molecule for a Microbe, a Giant Leap for Natural Products
Dr. Mouncey joined the DOE Joint Genome Institute in 2017 as the fourth Director in its 20-year history. He earned his Bachelor's of Science in Microbiology at University of Glasgow and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at University of Sussex. His team has developed production strains and fermentation processes for other molecules such as a new fungicide, propionic acid and long-chain alcohols, as well...