News and Events

Melanie Rutkowski, PhD awarded new grant: Gut microbiome-mediated differences within the pre-malignant mammary tissue environment enhance early breast tumor metastasis

Congratulations to Melanie Rutkowski, PhD on her new RO1 grant!  Total funds: 3.3 Millions. The goal of award is to define how the gut microbiome distally orchestrates cellular and molecular…

Roger Abounader, MD, PhD Principal Investigator for American Cancer Society Research Grant

The American Cancer Society is backing the UVA Cancer Center’s efforts to nurture promising ideas from early career scientists that could lead to important breakthroughs in our understanding of cancer…

Melissa Kendall, PhD Awarded $2.4 Million Grant to Study How Bacterial Pathogens Rely on RNA Binding Proteins to Establish Infection and Cause Disease

Melissa Kendall PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, was awarded a 5 year, $2.4 million grant to examine how bacterial pathogens rely on…

Dr. Michael Kovacs has been selected as the 2023 MIC Outstanding Student!

Dr. Michael Kovacs, from Tajie Harris’s laboratory, has been selected as the 2023 MIC Outstanding Student. Mike will also represent the MIC Graduate Program as our nominee for the Peach…

Congratulations to Drs. Kashatus and Zong who are part of the team that won the UVA VPR’s Research Collaboration Award!

Matthew J. Lazzara, Kevin A. Janes and a team of 14 other UVA faculty and staff were awarded a $12.3 million, five-year research grant from the National Institutes of Health…

Discovery Will Aid Gut-Microbiome Research Efforts

The collaboration between Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology and Chemistry professor Marcos Pires, PhD, examines novel methods to fluorescently ’tag’ and visualize gut commensal bacteria.…

Godfrey Dzhivhuho wins Leonard “Pug” Evans Post-Doc Presentation Award for best oral presentation

The MIC department and the Hammarskjold-Rekosh Lab are very proud of Godfrey Dzhivhuho!  Godfrey who won the Leonard “Pug” Evans Post-Doc Presentation Award for best oral presentation in the "Postdoc"…

Roger Abounader, MD, PhD, Awarded $2.4M NIH Grant

Roger Abounader, MD, PhD, a professor of MIC (Microbiology, Immunology & Cancer Biology), and neurology, the Arthur and Margaret Ebbert Endowed Chair of Medical Science, and associate director of basic…

Hui Zong Hui Zong, PhD Named Innovation Fund Investigator by Pew Chartitable Trusts

Congratulations to Hui Zong and his team! Hui Zong, PhD, an associate professor in our department and P. Todd Stukenberg, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular…

Melanie R. Rutkowski, PhD Research: a finding which could lead to ways to keep breast cancer from metastasizing.

“We show gut commensal dysbiosis, an unhealthy and inflammatory gut microbiome, systemically changes the mammary tissues of mice that do not have cancer. The tissue changes enhance infiltration of mast…