On May 16, 2024, the Regents of the University of Michigan promoted Melanie Pearson, Ph.D., to Associate Professor on the Research Track, effective September 1, 2024.

Faith Anderson, Jaime Fuentes, and Andrés Rivera Ruiz, M&I Ph.D. candidates, have been awarded prestigious fellowships from Rackham Graduate School, in recognition of their academic excellence. Congratulations, we’re so proud of you!

In emergency rooms and intensive care units across the country, clinicians make split-second decisions about which antibiotics to give a patient when a life threatening infection is suspected. Now, a study reveals that these decisions may have unintended consequences for patient outcomes.

On today’s The Fundamentals is Dr. Brummett, Professor at the University of Michigan where he serves as the Senior Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Anesthesiology. He has more than 280 publications, including articles in top journals such as JAMA, JAMA Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Annals of Surgery. He is the Co-Director of the Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network or OPEN at the University of Michigan, which aims to apply a preventative approach to the opioid epidemic in the US through appropriate prescribing after surgery, dentistry and emergency medicine. Moreover, he is the Co-Director of the cross-campus Opioid Research Institute, which was launched in the spring of 2023. He leads multiple NIH grants studying these concepts and receives funding from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, CDC, and multiple foundations. You can learn more about Dr. Brummett here, and you can follow Dr. Brummett @drchadb and the department of anesthesiology @UMichAnesthesia on X.

A study builds on previous work that found depriving T cells of iron prevented cells from proliferating. The current study, published in PNAS, found that excess iron is just as problematic.

Four Graduate Program in Immunology alumni participated in a panel discussion about their career paths.

This M&I award recognizes outstanding dissertations.

M&I grant administration team attends and presents at the National Council for University Research Administrators (NCURA) conferences

There are many intriguing aspects to the honor of a faculty member holding a named professorship in the University of Michigan Medical School: the excitement of receiving one of the highest honors the U-M can bestow on a faculty member; an understanding of the rich history of the person(s) for whom their professorship is named; and the flexibility of what the professorship allows the holders to do during their career. On April 1, the Medical School hosted a celebration of faculty who were appointed to named professorships in 2023.

Support the Microbiology and Immunology Annual Fund on Giving Blue Day.

In December 2023, Jona Kalaj and Angela Kelly received a 2023 Department of Microbiology and Immunology AdMIration award for their dedication to the department’s DEI goals

Elective surgery study shows older adults have concerns about what it will cost them, how much work they’ll miss and whether they’ll catch COVID-19.

In January 2024, Michael J. Imperiale, PhD, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, started his tenure as Professor Emeritus after his retirement from the University of Michigan (U-M) Department of Microbiology and Immunology (M&I) in December 2023.

The process, also known as liver perfusion, works differently than traditional ischemic cold storage methods for donor livers by involving technology that recreates the optimal physiological conditions for the organ.

Michigan Medicine researchers have found that growing bacteria on agar mixed with organs is an efficient and effective way to study infectious pathogens.