Assistant Professor, Microbiology

B.Sc., University of Connecticut

Ph.D., Harvard University

All organisms have evolved strategies to cope with the threat of invasion by parasites. Bacteriophages—viruses that infect and kill bacteria—impose strong pressures on their hosts, giving rise to diverse anti-viral defenses, including restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas systems. The well-documented utility of these systems for genetic engineering, combined with the rise of facile microbial genome sequencing, has ushered in a renaissance in the study of prokaryotic immune systems. The Meeske Lab has developed native host models to investigate the interfaces between diverse immune effectors, prokaryotic hosts, and the viruses that infect them. Using these tools, we will expand our understanding of the ways in which bacterial immune systems are controlled by their hosts, the cues to which they naturally respond, and the counter-defense strategies taken by bacteriophages to overcome them. We anticipate that these efforts will refine the toolkit of modern molecular biology and inform bacteriophage-based strategies for antimicrobial intervention.