Landmark experiments with model organisms such as mice have shown that infectious pathogens can disrupt the “normal” microbiome, but the extent to which this process shapes symbiotic microbial communities during disease outbreaks in nature is largely unknown. This new work, conducted by Andrea Jani, a UCSB graduate student in Cherie Briggs’ lab in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB), addresses a fundamental gap in disease ecology and microbiome research.

MCDB’s Denise Montell is the recipient of a 2014 Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The annual award recognizes a select group of scientists whose bold and innovative “pioneering” approaches have the potential to make an unusually high impact on a broad area of biomedical or behavioral research. Montell, the Duggan Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and her research team at UCSB define and solve fundamental questions in cell and developmental biology using fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) genetics, mammalian cell culture and state-of-the-art imaging approaches. Her team and their collaborators recently discovered a surprising reversibility of the cell suicide process known as apoptosis. Cells that have progressed beyond steps previously considered to be points of no return can reverse the dying process, recover and go on to proliferate. Depending on the circumstances, this has the potential for significant consequences, both positive and negative.