Bacterial Evolution and Membrane Biology. My laboratory group is currently engaged in two related areas of research, each uses the Gm-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli , as a model system.
Most studies involve rapidly growing cells.
In nature, cells repeatedly experience situations where they do not divide or divide infrequently. We seek to understand how cells adapt and evolve during such periods. Paradoxically, this state seems to help direct mutation events to adaptively beneficial genes. This has been termed adaptive mutation and has raised a heated debate in the scientific community. An important aspect of membrane biology is the role component-component interactions' play in the functioning of individual constituents and in the general permeability properties of the outer membrane.