Welcome — Lamason Lab

Rickettsia (green) infected cells - nuclei (purple) and mitochondria (gold)

Rickettsia (red) moving through host cells with long actin tails (green)

Motile Listeria (blue bacteria, red actin tails) spreading through a host monolayer with long membrane protrusions marked in green (plasma membrane)

Infectious focus of spreading bacteria (red, plasma membrane; green, bacteria; blue, nuclei)

mechanisms of HOst-Pathogen Interactions

In the Lamason lab, we investigate how intracellular bacterial pathogens such as Rickettsia parkeri and Listeria monocytogenes hijack host cell processes to promote infection. We use cellular, molecular, genetic, biochemical, and biophysical approaches to elucidate the mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions in order to reveal key insights into pathogenesis and host cell biology.

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RECENT Lab News

January 7, 2025: The final version of our paper investigating a novel interaction between Rickettsia parkeri and the rough ER is out in the Journal of Cell Biology today!

December 14, 2024: Hannah KM and Becky both gave talks at this year's annual ASCB meeting in sunny San Diego. We had many great interactions with other cell biologists and folks interested in host-pathogen interactions.

December 13, 2024: We got a grant! Thanks to the School of Science and the William Bowman (1944) Fund for funding exciting new directions in the lab studying T4SS structural biology.

December 4, 2024: Welcome to our newest postdoc, Jane Lodwick! Jane did her PhD in Minglei Zhoa’s lab at the University of Chicago and will apply her expertise in structural biology to study Rickettsia parkeri.

November 13, 2024: The final version of Cassandra Vondrak’s first author paper is online at Infection and Immunity describing the interaction between the effector Sca4 and clathrin. The editor also selected her paper as an “Article of significant interest”. Congrats!!

September 3, 2024: Today, we welcomed Elayne Fivenson to the lab! Elayne did her PhD in Tom Bernhardt’s lab at Harvard and will pursue her postdoc training with us, focusing on Rickettsia parkeri biology.

August 12, 2024: Welcome to our newest lab member, Hannah Heller, who will be completing her PhD training with us!

July 30, 2024: The third and final PhD. defense of 2024 is in the books! Dr. Cassandra Vondrak defended a fantastic thesis today (and has the sword to prove it!).

July 19, 2024: The final version of our paper using BONCAT to identify rickettsia secreted effectors has been published at Nature Communications!

July 16, 2024: The lab had a great time at the annual ASR meeting, with wonderful posters from Allison Scott, Brandon Sit, and Caroline Anderson and a fantastic talk by Hannah Margolis.

June 25, 2024: The lab’s latest preprint details the discovery of a novel interaction between the secreted effector Sca4 and clathrin. Check out this new story by Cassandra and Brandon and our collaborators Nam and Kevin in the Macaluso lab.

June 4, 2024: The lab had a great time at BBM this year, starting with Patrick’s fantastic talk in the morning and then two poster honorable mentions for Brandon and Allison. Way to go team!

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