Event Date
MIC 291: Selected Topics in Microbiology
Work-in-Progress Seminars
Professor Manuel Ricardo Amieva, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Interim Division Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute, at the Stanford University School of Medicine
Dr. Amieva presents: “Helicobacter pylori and gastric cancer from the microbe’s point of view”
Bio: Manuel’s research focus is on understanding how bacterial pathogens colonize epithelial surfaces and how epithelial colonization leads to infection and disease. He grew up in Mexico City and fell in love with the wonders of biology as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where he was taught multiple skills in microscopy and studied the development of marine invertebrates. Afterwards, Manuel returned to Mexico and wrote children’s books that were recorded as radioplays and retold his countless adventures in science and biology. He then moved to California to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. at Stanford University. During his Ph.D., Manuel studied how cytoskeletal proteins aid in cell movement in the laboratory of Heinz Furthmayr. Following completion of a residency in Pediatrics at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, Manuel became a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellow at Stanford and further trained as a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of Stanley Falkow. An avid microscopist, Manuel loves to hide in the microscope room where he can spend countless hours on the confocal looking through the porthole at microbes interacting with cells and tissues.
Research: My research focuses on understanding how bacterial pathogens colonize and persist on epithelial surfaces and how this leads to infection and disease. In our laboratory, we have developed novel microscopy techniques, including quantitative 3D confocal microscopy, electron microscopy, time-lapse imaging, microinjection, and micromanipulation, to visualize the interaction between pathogens and epithelial cells. We have also created new models to study microbe-host interactions, including human epithelial organoids with controlled polarity, and animal and human tissue models. Specifically, we have concentrated on studying infections of the gastrointestinal tract and have discovered several mechanisms that bacterial pathogens use to perturb the epithelial junctions to colonize or invade. While the focus of our lab has been on understanding how the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori colonizes and causes disease in the human stomach, our discoveries have expanded our investigations to other gastrointestinal and skin pathogens, such as Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella enterica, and Staphylococcus aureus.
Please contact Antonio Serapio-Palacios (aserapio@ucdavis.edu) and Amanda Huang (amnhuang@ucdavis..edu) for any questions.