Prindle Lab
Principal Investigator: Arthur Prindle
Institution: Northwestern University (Chicago, IL)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY Understanding communication among bacteria is a fundamental biological problem with critical implications for public health, especially in the context of bacterial communities known as biofilms. While bacteria are single-celled organisms, biofilms can exhibit many multicellular behaviors through emergent coordination and dynamic cell-to-cell signaling. Such collective behaviors unique to biofilms contribute to their ability to tolerate antibiotics and thrive in nearly any environment. While the advent of next-generation sequencing has ushered in a new appreciation for the broad and ubiquitous roles of bacteria in nature, our understanding of their molecular mechanisms of community coordination remains in its infancy. My overarching goal is to understand how coordinated group behaviors arise in bacterial biofilm communities through previously unexplored cell-to-cell signaling mechanisms, and how these emergent behaviors impart functional community-level benefits. Specifically, over the next five years, my group will use multiscale microscopy, high-throughput approaches, and quantitative genetics to decipher how gene regulation, metabolic adaptation, and microenvironm…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM147170-05: Emergent metabolic coordination and cell-to-cell signaling in bacterial biofilms (2026)
- 5R35GM147170-04: Emergent metabolic coordination and cell-to-cell signaling in bacterial biofilms (2025)
- 5R35GM147170-03: Emergent metabolic coordination and cell-to-cell signaling in bacterial biofilms (2024)
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