Drs. Hosni Hassan and Matt Koci, from N.C. State’s departments of microbiology and poultry science, respectively, are leading the charge on a new five-year, $2.5 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture to stamp out salmonella.
For nearly as long as Lizzie Johnson Harrell can remember, she has been, in some form or fashion, a teacher – whether she was leading a make-believe classroom at home with some of her 12 brothers and sisters, instructing first-year medical school students, or serving as a mentor to emerging microbiologists.
Each year, foodborne microbes make millions sick, lead to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and kill more than 3,000 people in the United States alone. In her Schaub Hall laboratory, N.C. State University’s Dr. Sophia Kathariou works to reduce that toll by unraveling the molecular mysteries of two particularly problematic pathogens.
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences researchers are working to develop a vaccine that would protect poultry – and by extension people who eat chickens and eggs – from Salmonella.
Using micro-organisms able to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, two CALS researchers are working to turn plants and algae into oil-producing factories efficient enough to help solve the problem of the world’s diminishing petroleum reserves.
While N.C. State University researchers work to create next-generation fuels, Dr. Michael Hyman examines the opposite of a fuel’s lifecycle, studying how microbes in the soil can degrade gasoline components. And that work has important implications for cleaning up spills and protecting groundwater from contamination.
Dr. Eric Miller, a long-time College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty member, has been named to head the Department of Microbiology.
Dr. Todd Klaenhammer, Distinguished University Professor and William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of food, bioprocessing and nutrition sciences, was one of three winners of the IDF Elie Metchnikoff Prize 2010.
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