Promoting Innovation Through Collaboration
Research and training focused on diagnosis, treatment, prevention and clinical management of infectious disease, cancer, and metabolic and genetic disorders.
The Drexel University College of Medicine Institute for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease is a collaborative inter-campus enterprise focused on research, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and clinical management of infectious disease, cancer, and metabolic and genetic disorders.
The institute guides the development of collaborative research programs that will be competitive for extramural research and training support. The institute also provides an organized framework to guide the development of inter-campus, inter-college and inter-unit research initiatives across the College.
Upcoming and Recent Events
Workshop Series on Molecular and Translational Medicine
Check back for the 2021 dates for the Workshop Series on Molecular and Translational Medicine.
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Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease Seminars
The current semester's research seminar schedule is now available:
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News and Announcements
Hep-B Ware Wins 3rd Place
Drexel's Hep-B Ware has won 3rd place for Student Games Presented in the PechaKucha Style at the European Conference on Game-based Learning. Mary Ann Comunale presented the game at the conference that took place on September 23-24, 2021. The game was developed by Drexel co-op student Christopher Dobbins (Game Design and Production 20'). PechaKucha is a storytelling format where the game presents 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each. Download Hep-B Ware on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.drexel.ducom.hepb1&hl=en_US&gl=US)
Congratulations on Successful Thesis Defense
On April 23, 2021, Kaytie Innamorati successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Comparative genomics of the keystone mucosal pathogens Porphyromonas gingivalis and Gardnerella vaginalis reveal associations between virulence phenotypes and phylogenetic structures.”
On March 31, 2021, Haley Majer successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Natural Product Discovery of Thiopeptide Producers and Functional Characterization of Adenylation-Domains in Thiostrepton and Siomycin Biosynthesis.”
August 2020 Karabots Junior Fellows Outreach Initiative
Department of Microbiology and Immunology students and staff have completed another outreach initiative with The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Karabots Junior Fellows. The Junior Fellows are high school students and Philadelphia residents with an interest in health care or medicine, who will be the first in their immediate family to graduate with a higher education degree, and who qualify for free or reduced lunch. The graduate students designed and implemented a three-session program that discussed the need for a cohesive and well-planned national pandemic strategy. The discussions focused on: the role of health care providers and epidemiologists; biostatistics and the creation of databases; the role of biomedical researchers in targeted therapies and vaccine development; and the need for honest and scientifically correct communications between those working to mitigate a pandemic as well as dissemination of information to the public. Participants included Dr. Mary Ann Comunale, Jennifer Conners, Elijah Davis Rachael, Erlich Mohamed Hager, Dr. Ogan Kumova, Teresa LuPone and Kayla Socarras.
Discovery Day 2019
November 7, 2019: Students and professional staff from the Ehrlich, Beld, and Mell Labs, including Jocelyn Hammond, Hayley Majer, Danielle Piazza and Amanda Platt, presented posters at the 2019 Discovery Day at the Philadelphia Convention Center.
Discovery Day is an all-day annual event of intellectual pursuit and discovery, which is organized to celebrate the basic and clinical research accomplishments of the graduate, medical and undergraduate students, clinical research coordinators, postdoctoral fellows, and residents and fellows affiliated with the College of Medicine.
- Jocelyn Hammond, MS, a research associate at the Center for Advanced Microbial Processing (CAMP), presented her poster, “Supragenome-wide Association Study in NontypeableHaemophilus influenzae Reveals Role for Polyamine Metabolism and pH Homeostasis in Otitis Media.”
- Haley Majer, a PhD candidate in the lab of Joris Beld, PhD, presented her posted, “Whole Genome Sequencing of Actinomycetes Isolates Reveal Gene Clusters that Encode Potent Antibiotics.”
- Danielle Piazza, a PhD candidate in the lab of Joshua Chang Mell, PhD, presented her poster, “Detecting Genetic Events without Genetics: Direct Visualization of Genome-Wide Recombination in a Pathogenic Bacterium by Optical Mapping.”
- Amanda Platt, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the lab of Joris Beld, PhD, presented her poster, "Understanding protein-protein interactions in natural product biosynthesis using a small synthase."
Amanda Platt at Discovery Day
Hayley Majer at Discovery Day
Dr. Lapides Presents Research on Discrete Classification Mathematics
August 28, 2019: Garth Ehrlich, PhD, hosted Jeffrey Lapides, PhD, at that day’s IMMID research seminar. Dr. Lapides presented his research, “Identifying Predictive Patterns in Microbiome and Genomic Data Using Discrete Classification Mathematics” at that day’s IMMID research seminar. Dr. Lapides, founder and managing director of Lapides Consulting, uses machine learning techniques, predictive analytics and visualization methods to support health care and other organizations seeking to advance how they manage and market.
August 26, 2019: Malaria Invasion, the latest educational mobile game produced by the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease at Drexel University College of Medicine is available for free download from iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPad users, and in the Google Play Store for Android devices. The mobile game is intended to be a supplementary tool to teach university students, in particular graduate students and research trainees in infectious disease, about the molecular mechanisms of disease in malaria. Read more.
August 2019: Lying inside a freezer in Drexel’s College of Medicine are 500 dead, mourned by no one. The deer ticks, dog ticks, lone star ticks and other tiny parasites in the diminutive morgue traveled from nearly every state in the country to reach this resting place. They arrived in baggies or cookie tins or what-have-you, scooped from meadows and forests by helpful volunteers responding to a “call for specimens” on Drexel’s website that was posted by Kayla Socarrás, a doctoral student studying microbiology and immunology. Each tick contains multitudes of smaller organisms — a grab-bag of the pathogenic bacteria that make tick bites so hazardous. Read more.
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