Principal Investigator

Lance E Keller, PhD

I have been studying bacterial pathogenesis since 2011 when I began my graduate work at University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). After obtaining my PhD in Microbiology and Immunology in 2015 I spent the next 5 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. I then joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UMMC as a research assistant professor in 2020. In 2022 I became an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at UMMC.

Graduate Student

Lucas Crosby

Lucas joined the lab in August 2023. His project work will involve analysis of microbial communities in the presence of microplastics. He is also working on understanding how increased expression of certain pathways alter antibiotic susceptibility. 

Graduate Student

Fahim Khan

Fahim joined the lab in August 2023. His project involves use of genome wide associate studies to determine genetic variations that alter binding to various human serum proteins. He is also working on better understanding how a identified surface protein alters virulence through modulating the host immune response.  

Technician

Kiran Kaur

Kiran joined the lab in February of 2023. She provides technical support for the lab as well as examining the potential role of pneumococcal type IV pilus in twitching motility.