Lab Tour Request

The Genetics and Infectious Disease lab is Boise State’s first clinical lab with a CLIA license to perform clinical diagnostics. We also provide Next Gen sequencing services and bioinformatics to campus researchers. We focus on research projects in infectious diseases and wildlife genomics.

Our research focuses on host-microbial interactions and the gut-microbiota-brain axis. We study the mechanisms of immunomodulation induced by gut microbes in the context of autoimmune diseases of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis. Our goal is to understand better the interactions between gut microbes and the immune system to design safer and more effective therapeutics.

My research program strives to understand how microbial communities respond to anthropogenic influences on natural ecosystems, including changes in climate, presence of chronic ecosystem stressors, and emerging pollutants. Biotechnology research in my lab includes investigations into novel microbial systems for renewable energy generation, bioremediation, and biotechnology.

Cancer, Forensic DNA, Virology, Bioinformatics

My lab studies how plant interactions with microbial symbionts and herbivores affect plant drought tolerance.

Our lab uses genetic and genomic technologies to inform the conservation and management of threatened birds.

We study microbial community ecology using metagenomics tools. Our team mostly uses plant-microbial systems, investigating the aquatic microcosms of carnivorous pitcher plants or the leaves of our local sagebrush. Our research explores how communities form and how microbes interact with each other and with their hosts to affect whole ecosystems.

Our laboratory’s research interests are in the area of inflammatory proteins and their role in cancer invasion and metastasis. Our lab has conducted some of the field’s first research on specific proteins cancer metastasis, particularly to bone and lung. Now we are addressing both how OSM interacts with IL-6 and promotes extracellular matrix remodeling in breast cancer metastasis.