One involves looking for interactions between purified components in vitro. The other involves screening for interactions between various viral proteins or between viral proteins and host plant proteins by expressing them as fusions with proteins from yeast that regulate expression of a reporter gene in yeast cells. Our goal with this project is to identify potential targets for the development of new control measures. We collaborate with Dr. Tom German and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and with Dr. Pierre Hilson at INRA in France. My goal as a teacher is to communicate the concepts and facts that are central to areas of biology that I teach while at the same time to assist students in appreciating the means by which this understanding is obtained.
Microbiology is an area of biology that covers the lifestyles of bacteria and viruses.
These organisms are among the most successful on the planet and understanding their biology should also inform us about aspects of our own biology, about diseases these organisms incite, and about ways that our ecosystem functions. Cell Biology studies life at the cellular, sub-cellular, and molecular levels as well as how cells communicate with each other. Understanding how a cell receives signals from its environment, processes those signals, and responds to the signal is a major goal of modern biology and of my course. I also teach in the First Year Seminar program. In that setting my goal is to aid first year students in adjusting to the intensity of academics at the university level.