Learning may start in the classroom, but it doesn’t end there. The Gene Michaels room honors past Microbiology faculty member Dr. Gene Michaels who took exceptional interest in undergraduate instruction. The room was recently renovated and relocated to offer students a place for collaboration and study.  As you can see, students are taking full advantage of this space on the third floor of the BioSciences Building.

There are at least 1.5 million fungal species on earth, but only a few fungi can cause systemic infections in humans and animals. Nonetheless, these few pathogenic fungi pose serious threat to public health. We primarily focus on two major fungal pathogens: Cryptococcus neoformans (top left image) and Aspergillus fumigatus (bottom left image). C. neoformans is the causative agent for cryptococcal meningitis, the most common fungal infection of the central nervous system (CNS) and the third most frequent neurological complication in AIDS patients. Cryptococcal meningitis causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually and is responsible for 15% of deaths in AIDS patients. Aspergillus fumigatus can cause various diseases, varying from an allergic response, aspergillomas, to severe invasive aspergillosis in neutropenic patients. Lin lab members are interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms employed by these fungi that govern their virulence. In particular, we investigate the impact of fungal life cyle and morphological differentiation on pathogenicity.

Lin Lab Alumni

Bing Zhai (former graduate student, currently a postdoc at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City)

Yunfang Meng (visiting MD/PhD student from Shanghai ChangZheng Hospital, currently a physician at Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University)

Rachana Gyawali (former graduate student, currently a postdoc at Duke Medical Center, North Carolina)

Linqi Wang (former postdoctoral fellow, currently a professor at Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Xinping Xu (former postdoctoral fellow, currently a professor at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University)

Xiuyun Tian (former postdoctoral fellow, currently a staff scientist at Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Nadia Chacko (former postdoctoral fellow, currently a research scientist at UC riverside)