We are part of the Department of Microbiology in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. The mission of our lab is twofold: 1) to make novel discoveries in bacterial physiology, regulation, and stress response, and 2) to train rigorous, creative, and collaborative microbiologists.
We use a combination of genetic, genomic, and biochemical techniques to study how bacteria sense and respond to their environments. We are particularly interested in the molecular biology of the symbiotic and probiotic bacteria that make up the healthy microbiome, and are working to identify new regulators, proteins, and pathways that may influence the interactions between bacteria and their human or animal hosts. Our current research has three primary tracks:
For more information and for details on specific projects ongoing in the lab, see our Research page.
Dr. Gray's free course packet on Bacterial Genetics and Molecular Biology is available here.
The Gray lab is dedicated to diversity and inclusion, and we promote and recognize principles of fairness and equity in relation to, and across, intersections of race, age, color, disability, faith, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, sex, sexual orientation, social class, economic class, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, and all other identities represented among our diverse communities.
Lab happy hour at Cahaba Brewing to celebrate the start of the Fall semester:
New preprint online now! Check it out:
As we start up the new semester, welcome to new undergraduate research assistant Christine Kim, who will be joining the team working with Chris on polyP in Gram-positive bacteria.
Welcome to new lab member Drashti Vaghasia, a Masters of Public Health student who will be working with Avery to study the role of hypothiocyanite in oral bacteria!
Conference season! Here are Mike, Chris, and Julia at last week's Microbial Stress Gordon Conference in Massachusetts:
And Avery and Sierra are in Wisconsin this week for the Beneficial Microbes meeting:
Online now in the Journal of Bacteriology. Nickel inhibits glutathione oxidoreductase, potentiating HOSCN toxicity in E. coli: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39016617/
Check out this new paper from our collaborators in the Randall lab showing the impact of bacterial metabolism in the microbiome on cancer biology. We helped!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312824001975
Check out our new paper on polyphosphate kinase, explaining why none of the in vitro data from the past 20 years makes any sense and how to fix it, now online ahead of print at the Journal of Molecular Biology:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283624002468
Welcome to new undergraduate research assistant Lilla Fournier, who will be teaming up with Harshita to work with Dr. Chris Hamm on understanding polyphosphate biology in Bacillus species!
Congratulations to Avery Lieber for getting a pre-doctoral training fellowship through the UAB dental school DART T90!
Lab photo from the 2024 Microbiology Department photoshoot. We weren't all in town, but we're looking pretty sharp. :-)
Huge congratulations to Dr. Cortez Bowlin, who has been selected as the 2024-2025 Research!America Dr. Louis Sullivan Science Policy Fellow. We'll miss him, but wish him all the best in his future adventures!
Check out our latest preprint on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial hypothiocyanite resistance, available online now!
Happy 2024 from the whole Gray lab!
Year-end lab cleanup day!
The 2024 edition of Dr. Gray's Bacterial Genetics course packet is now available online at the lab GitHub page
A cheerful Zoom lab meeting to round out November. :-)
Congratulations to Cortez for his successful public defense!
Congratulations to Cortez Bowlin for his successful Halloween Ph.D. thesis defense! Stay tuned for the public defense on Nov. 8th. :-)
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