Matthew Hou is awarded a SURG award to continue his work with Dr. Jackman on microdroplets.

Bailey Smith and Shaw Camphire receive T32 training grants on their Spn cell-cell communication projects.

Karina Mueller Brown is the 2023 recipient of the Bhakta and Sushama Rath Graduate Award.

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Dr. Karina Mueller Brown successfully defends her doctoral dissertation entitled “Studies of Pneumococcal Populations: from Genetic Loci to Coordination Pathways and Interkingdom Interactions”

Pratyush Ravi joins the Hiller lab for his doctoral work.

Dr. Hiller presents lab work at the Microbiology Society Annual Conference at Birmingham UK, at Leicester University and at UPMC.

Hiller lab hosts Dr. Jan-Willem Veening from University of Lausanne and Dr. Lauren O. Bakaletz from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Corine Jackman received the Margaret Carver Research Enrichment Grant.

Ashni Arun, Srujana Neelavar and Ashita Jawali join the Hiller lab for Master’s Projects. Qixin (Amy) Zhou selects to pursue her Master’s Honor Thesis Project.

Hiller lab members, Corine Jackman, Karina Mueller Brown, Bailey Smith and Shaw Camphire presented at MAMPM.

The lab hosted Dr. Hasan Yesilkaya from University of Leicester, UK.

Corine Jackman gave an oral presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineering Conference in Phoenix, AZ.

Karina Mueller-Brown was awarded a best poster award at the RBM2022.

The RBM2022 had poster presentations by Bailey Smith, Barbara Ferreira, Corine Jackman, Karina Mueller-Brown, Rory Eutsey and Shaw Camphire (with contribution from Pratyush Ravi). KMB, BS, SC, and PR were funded by the GSA Fellowship.

The Hiller lab co-hosted the 2 nd Rust Belt Microbiome Conference (RBM2022).

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Luisa visited Case Western Reserve University and Indiana State University to share the lab’s work in Departmental Seminars.

Matthew Lou (sophomore at CMU) joined the lab to learn how to work on microfluidics and pneumococcus with Corine Jackman.

Derek Wang (senior at CMU) and Qixin (Amy) Zhou (Master student) joined the lab to work with comparative genomics of pneumococcus.

Karina Mueller-Brown opened PAMP for the year with her presentation “How to regulate social networks: lessons learned from the pneumococcus”.

The lab hosted Dr. Jose Lemos from the University of Florida, Dr. Nick Giannoukakis from Allegheny Health Network and Dr. Jill Dembowski from Duquesne University.

Barbara Ferreira, from Raquel Sa-Leao’s group at the ITQB in Lisbon Portugal, visited our lab for the semester.

Corine Jackman’s career path is highlighted by CMU’s ChemE news “Jackman engineers solutions to biology problems”.

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Luisa, Karina Mueller-Brown and Corine Jackman attended the Streptococcal GRC in Maine. Corine presented orally at the GRS, Karina and Corine presented posters, and Luisa gave a talk on pneumococcal extracellular vesicles. KMB was funded by an award from MCS.

The Hiller lab had fun with OpenField, in a science outreach day.

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Luisa moderated “Application of Genomics to S. pneumoniae” at ISPPD, Toronto.

The Hiller lab attended EuroPneumo in Liverpool, UK with oral presentations by Karina Mueller-Brown and Corine Jackman. KMB presented her work on coordination of cell-cell communications (funded by Biological Sciences Graduate Student Travel Award and CMU GSA/Provost Conference Funding), and CJ presented her work capturing cell-cell signaling in microdroplets.

Anne Liu and Kaitlyn Li engaged in summer research, working with Corine Jackman.

Surya Aggarwal visited for his PhD Hooding Ceremony.

Undergraduates Yiran (Rae) Duan and Amanda Vallon were awarded the SURG award. They are working on secreted peptides implicated in communication and bacteriocidal activity with Karina Mueller-Brown.

Luisa shared the lab’s work on cell-cell signaling and extracellular vesicles with St. Jude Children’s Hospital in a departmental talk.

Shaw Camphire and Bailey Smith joined the Hiller lab as PhD candidates!

Corine Jackman presented her work on the adaptation of microdroplets to study pneumococcal biology at PAMP.

Luisa presented “The Pneumococcal Social Network” at the Dorothy Jones Lecture at University of Leicester, UK.

Karina Mueller-Brown was awarded the Biological Sciences Margaret Carver Outstanding Paper Award for her FEMS Microbe paper developed in collaboration with the Lakdawala Lab.

Corine Jackman presented her work at the department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University.

Press release for Karina Mueller-Brown regarding her collaboration with Valeria Le Sage on ‘Secondary infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae decreases influenza virus replication and is linked to severe disease’ which was also featured in the #FEMSmicroBlog ‘When pneumococcus meets influenza in one host’

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The Hiller lab presented at MAMPM. Corine Jackman presented her work on the development of microdroplets to study pneumococcal cell signaling and Karina Mueller-Brown presented her work on influenza-pneumococcal coinfection.

Luisa gave a keynote talk at the Mark Wilson Conference in Puerto Rico.

Karina Mueller-Brown presented her work on influenza-pneumococcal coinfection at MELD.

Sarah Werner Lass defended her Master’s thesis entitled “Unraveling the role of Pneumococcal Extracellular Vesicles in Horizontal Gene Transfer”.

Corine Jackman received the NIH Diversity Supplement through the NIAID.

Press release for “Pneumococcal Extracellular Vesicles Modulate the Immune Response."

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Karina Mueller-Brown was awarded the prestigious Glen de Vries Graduate Fellowship in the Biological Sciences.

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Sai Yerneni received the Richard and Mary Finkelstein Student Abstract Award for an oral presentation at World Microbe Forum annual ASM meeting, June 2021.

Corine Jackman awarded the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for her superior academic achievements.

Undergraduates Henry Liu and Rae Duan received SURF awards for summer research in the lab.

Corine Jackman presented her work at the Chemical Engineering National Future Faculty Seminar and at the Summer Complex Fluids and Engineering Seminar Series at Carnegie Mellon University.

Karina Mueller-Brown awarded the Stupakoff Scientific Achievement Award.

Corine Jackman awarded the Burroughs Wellcome Postdoctoral Enrichment Program to support her work using microfluids to investigate pneumococcal biology.

Amana Vallon awarded funding from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium for her summer research project.

Press release “How pathogenic bacteria weather the slings and arrows of infection.”

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Surya Aggarwal’s manuscript “Competence-Associated Peptide BriC Alters Fatty Acid Biosynthesis in Streptococcus pneumoniae” was selected as Editor’s Editor's Pick in mSphere.

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Sai Yerneni received the graduate biomedical engineering department outstanding research award during the graduation ceremony.

Collaborative project "Catalyzing an interdisciplinary approach to engineering bacterial communities" led by postdoctoral fellow Corine Jackman in collaboration with Dr. Shelley Anna, was awarded the Catalyst Fellowship from CMU's School of Engineering.

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Karina Muller-Brown was awarded the Margaret Carver Travel Award to attend the Microbial Glycobiology Conference Online Conference.

Sai Yerneni awarded the AAI Trainee Poster Award from American Association of Immunologists for his work on pneumococcal extracellular vesicles.

Sarah Werner was awarded the Margaret Carver Award for Enhancing Diversity, Equitability and Inclusion. She has been working with Open Field to promote STEM.

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Rory Eutsey received CMU's Outstanding Achievement Award.

Surya Aggarwal defended his thesis "Molecular Mechanisms of Pneumococcal Adaptation to Host Environment & Stress" and started a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University with Dr. Jeff Weiser.

Surya Aggarwal Received the Graduate Student Service Award.

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Hiller and Campbell labs were awarded the Shurl & Kay Curci Foundation Award to study the role of pneumococcal extracellular vesicles in bacterial infection.

Luisa presented lab work at the University of Birmingham, Cleveland Clinic and Nationwide Children's.

Rolando Cuevas defended his thesis "The Role of the Signaling Peptide VP1 in the Virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae" and started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Cynthia St. Hilaire.

Lab Members Sarah Werner, Karina Muller-Brown, Surya Aggarwal, Alex Muralles, Rolando Cuevas, Sai Yerneni, and Luisa Hiller presented their work at the RustBelt Microbiome Conference.

The Hiller lab co-hosted the RustBelt Microbiome Conference with Drs. Michael Morowitz and Alison Morris. The event received generous grants from the American Society of Microbiology, the Eden Hall Foundation, the Mellon College of Science David Scaife Foundation Fund, NIGMS, and UPMC Corporate Charitable Giving.

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Undergraduates Tara Fedder and Pedro Safi received the SURG award for research.

Luisa presented "Bacterial Cities: Decoding the Language" at a panel discussion at Life Sciences Week in Pittsburgh, PA.

Hiller lab was awarded a R01 grant from NIAID.

Sarah Werner finalized her qualifying exam, she is officially ABD!

Surya Aggarwal was awarded the prestigious Glen de Vries Graduate Fellowship in the Biological Sciences

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The Hiller lab is co-hosting the RustBelt Microbiome Conference with Drs. Michael Morowitz and Alison Morris. Event to be held in Pittsburgh on Nov 4-5, 2019

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Surya Aggarwal presented his work revealing a molecular link between the pneumococcal cell wall and the stringent response at the 14th European Meeting on the Molecular Biology of the Pneumococcus (Europneumo) in Greifswald, Germany. His trip was funded by the Biological Sciences Graduate Student Travel Award

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Luisa Hiller presented a plenary talk at Europneumo in Greifswald, Germany

Pedro Safi received funding from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium for his summer research project

Sarah Werner was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Karina Mueller-Brown finalized her qualifying exam, she is officially ABD!

Rolando Cuevas presented his work at the Pittsburgh Area Microbial Pathogenesis Meeting (PAMP)

"Connecting The Dots From Competence To Pneumococcal Disease" by Surya Aggarwal and Luisa Hiller published on Science Trends

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Hiller lab attended MAMPM (Mid-Atlantic Microbial Pathogenesis Meeting), where Surya Aggarwal presented his work on BriC

Lab research featured in article "Researchers Discover What Pneumococcus "Says" to Make You Sick"

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Collaborative research with the Durand lab featured in article "Bacteria’s Password for Sporulation Hasn’t Changed in 2.7 Billion Years"

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Surya Aggarwal was awarded the inaugural MCS Graduate Student Conference Funding Award by Mellon College of Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University

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Surya Aggarwal presented a talk and a poster at the Southeastern Regional Pneumococcal Symposium at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis from May 10th–11th

Rolando Cuevas was awarded a GSA travel fellowship

Rolando Cuevas presented a poster at the Southeastern Regional Pneumococcal Symposium at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis from 10th–11th

Surya Aggarwal was elected to serve as the President of the CMU Graduate Student Assembly for 2018-2019

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Luisa Hiller presented a plenary talk at the 11th International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD) Melbourne, Australia

Luisa Hiller, Michael J. Morowitz, Jennifer Bomberger, Alison Morris, and Barbara Methé co-hosted the 1st Pittsburgh Microbial Community (PMC) Symposium

Rolando Cuevas was awarded Carnegie Mellon's Graduate Student Teaching Award

Surya Aggarwal successfully co-leads a national campaign (and at Carnegie Mellon) #ReworkTheReform to ensure graduate student tuition is not taxed under the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act".

Read about his views in 90.5 WESA, Daily Beast and WHYY.

Collaborative project on pneumococcal evolution

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Rolando Cuevas's article makes the cover of Molecular Microbiology.

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Anagha Kadam's article is selected as Featured Research in PLoS Pathogens.

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Surya Aggarwal won the People’s Choice Award & the 2nd Place Award in the Carnegie Mellon Three-minute Thesis (3MT) Competition 2017.

Watch his 3MT presentation here

Surya Aggarwal named a finalist in the CMU Three Minute Thesis Competition

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Surya Aggarwal awarded the Stupakoff Scientific Achievement Award

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Surya Aggarwal elected to serve on the 2017 Board of Directors for National Association for Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) as the International Student Advocate

Collaboration between Biological Sciences and Computer Engineering Modeling the Spread of Bacterial Drug Resistance.

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Anagha Kadam was awarded a Carnegie Mellon Presidential Fellowship

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Luisa Hiller presents at AAOMS (American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon) at special section on the Molecular and Biological Basis of Oral Biofilm

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Listen to Anagha Kadam describe her research project

CMU Biological Sciences Ph.D. Videos

Surya Aggarwal visits the United States Senate to discuss policy issues

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Luisa Hiller at ISPPD (International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases) as a member of the International Scientific Committee

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Luisa Hiller presents at ISMB (International Society for Computational Biology) special section on the Molecular Communication and Networking with Applications to Precision Medicine

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Anagha Kadam selected to participate in the Clinical & Translational Research Course for PhD students at the NIH Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD

Anagha Kadam awarded Prize for her oral presentation at Europneumo, Oxford, UK.

Anagha Kadam: A “candid” look at microbiology in the department

CMU Biological Sciences Promoter article

A look at a collaborative projects on antibiofilm surface coatings based on long-wavelength photosensitizers

Mellon College of Science Magazine article

Anagha Kadam awarded poster award at the Microbial Genomics Meeting, Arrowhead, CA.