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My Mental Health and Graduate School
I gave my PhD exit talk on Tuesday September 13th, 2021, but afterward I didn’t feel like celebrating, I just felt burnt out. During my PhD I never felt like I was making enough progress. This constant thought was heavily influenced by the fact that there was only one model of “PhD success” I was aware of, and my PhD journey didn’t adhere to this model. My dry lab data weren’t enough.
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Bacterial Strategies of Host Colonization
Our environment exposes us to a vast array of microorganisms some of which populate our microbiomes. Research on microbiome assembly has largely focused on host features that dictate habitability, but bacterial features that promote colonization of a host, especially in non-pathogenic organisms, remain poorly understood. In the August issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Robinson et al. investigate bacterial strategies of host colonization and identify a mechanism by which bacteria use chemically regulated motility to promote rapid immigration into the host.
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The Importance of TGFβ to Skin Tissue Resident Memory T Cells
CD8+ tissue resident memory (Trm) T cells are long-lasting immune cells retained at peripheral tissue sites where they can mount a rapid and robust local response to previously encountered microbial pathogens. In the epidermal compartment, Trm cell development is critically dependent on transforming growth factor β (TGFβ). This cytokine, produced in a latent form, is activated in skin by keratinocyte-expressed αvβ6 and αvβ8 integrins, and skin CD8+ T cells exposed to active TGFβ show upregulated expression of the surface molecule CD103.
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Inflammatory Mediators of Pre-Term Labor
Intrauterine infection/inflammation (IUI), also known as chorioamnionitis, is a condition that occurs when bacteria from the urogenital tract ascends to the uterus and infects the membranes surrounding the fetus as well as the amniotic fluid. It is well established that IUI contributes to preterm labor and can led to devastating health outcomes for both the pregnant individual and the fetus. Not all IUI cases end in preterm delivery, however, thus necessitating research to identify the specific inflammatory mediators that drive IUI-induced preterm labor.
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