Membrane Transport in Living Systems

Pagliara Group

Pagliara's Group

Research Overview

Our research is focused on understanding how microbial cells interact with their environment both as a community and as individual cells with an emphasis of membrane transporter regulation. Besides standard microbiology techniques and omics approaches, we develop bespoke microfluidic devices that enable to accurately control the microenvironment surrounding the cells and perform a series of functional assays on the very same individual cell. This allows us to shed light on the physiology of rare subpopulations of cells that are generally hidden in ensemble measurements on clonal populations. We apply the technology we develop for collaborative studies on antimicrobial resistance, bacterial physiology, ageing in unicellular organisms and stem cell differentiation.

Recent publications

  1. E. L. Attrill, U. Łapińska, E. R. Westra, S. V. Harding, S. Pagliara
    Slow growing bacteria survive bacteriophage in isolation
    ISME Communications 3, 95 (2023) [Link][PDF]
  2. U. Łapińska, G. Glover, Z. Kahveci, N. A. T. Irwin, D. S. Milner, M. Tourte, S.-V. Albers, A. E. Santoro, T. A. Richards, S. Pagliara
    Systematic comparison of unilamellar vesicles reveals that archaeal core lipid membranes are more permeable than bacterial membranes
    PLoS Biology 21, e3002048 (2023) [Link][PDF]
  3. B. Zhang, W. Phetsang, M. R. L. Stone, S. Kc, M. S. Butler, M. A. Cooper, A. G. Elliott, U. Łapińska, M. Voliotis, K. Tsaneva-Atanasova, S. Pagliara, M. A. T. Blaskovich
    Synthesis of vancomycin fluorescent probes that retain antimicrobial activity, identify Gram-positive bacteria, and detect Gram-negative outer membrane damage
    Communications Biology 6, 409 (2023) [Link][PDF]
  4. J. L. Binsley, T. O. Myers, S. Pagliara, F. Y. Ogrin
    Herringbone micromixers for particle filtration
    Biomicrofluidics 17, 014106 (2023) [Link][PDF]
  5. Y. Zhang, I. Kepiro, M. G. Ryadnov, S. Pagliara
    Single Cell Killing Kinetics Differentiate Phenotypic Bacterial Responses to Different Antibacterial Classes
    Microbiology Spectrum 11, 03667 (2023) [Link][PDF]

News

  • 8-September-2023: Congratulations Erin! New paper out at ISME Communications
  • 10-April-2023: Congratulations Ula! New paper out at PLoS Biology
  • 7-June-2022: Congratulations Ula! New paper out at eLife