The Microbiology Graduate Group offers interdisciplinary, interdepartmental training and combines academic and experimental training in modern molecular approaches to microbiological problems. Areas of research span fundamental, applied, and pathogenic microbiology, including bacterial and viral pathogenesis, eukaryotic microbiology, microbial genomics and genetics, microbial physiology and development, microbial ecology and environmental microbiology, cancer biology, and bioengineering and bioremediation.

Current faculty members utilize molecular genetics to study the biology of individual microbes and also use microbial and non-microbial models for the study of specific cellular processes, including recombination, stress responses, aging, cancer, DNA repair, and mutagenesis.