Research in the Rodrigues lab is focused on understanding how bacteria develop into one of the toughest cell types on Earth - Spores.
Spores are dormant, highly-resistant cells that allow bacteria to persist in the environment. Spores are inert to antibiotics and resist common sterilisation methods that kill actively growing bacteria. In the right conditions, spores germinate and generate new populations of bacteria. Some spore-forming bacteria cause disease in humans, animals and insects, and contaminate food sources. The Rodrigues lab is interested in the molecular processes that underlie the process of how bacteria develop into spores. Currently, our research examines these processes in the model bacterium Bacillus subtilis and have now launched a new project exploring the sporulation biology of other spore-forming bacteria.
NEWS:
May 2025:
Check-out the pre-print of Postdoctoral Researcher Chris Graham, on the development of MemTorMD - a computational framework to study lipids and proteins in toroidal membranes, present at division and fission sites. Developed in collaboration with Phill Stansfeld.
June 2024:
Check-out the work of PhD candidate, Behzad Dehghani, that identifies an additional role for SpoIIE during sporulation, published in Journal of Bacteriology.
February 2024:
Check-out the work of our collaborator Cecile Morlot, on the ultrastructural details of the spore envelope, published in Nature Communications.
October 2023:
Have a look at our lab members section to see the newest members of the lab. Check-out the pre-print of our collaborator Cecile Morlot, on the ultrastructural details of the spore envelope.
September 2022:
Check out our recent work published in mBio, which includes collaborative work with Simonetta Gribaldo at the Institut Pasteur and Felipe Cava at Umea University.
August 2022:
Our recent collaborative work with Erdem Karatekin at Yale University is now published in Current Biology.
We are currently recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (24 months). Applications close 14th of September.
April 2022:
Check out our cover in the May Issue of Trends in Microbiology.