Venturelli Lab News Today

A deleterious bacterial infection can take hold when the diverse community of bacteria in the gut microbiome are killed with antibiotics.

Researchers are uncovering the complex mechanisms by which human gut bacteria accomplish a variety of functions, from transforming compounds derived from food into nutrition for the host to producing molecules that impact human behavior and performance.

On crisp fall days in Wisconsin, farmers throughout the state harvest crops like field corn. UW-Madison scientists are looking for alternatives that result in a reduction in fertilizer applications by using bacteria that thrive on the gel of aerial roots of corn.

An R21 from the National Institutes of Health will help assistant professor Ophelia Venturelli and her co-investigator Daniel Amador-Noguez, an associate professor of bacteriology, tease apart the microbial interactions and metabolites impacting C. difficile growth.