Joe Pogliano Elected Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology

May 10, 2019

By Mario Aguilera

Joe Pogliano, a professor of microbiology in UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences, has been elected to the 2019 class of fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM).

The American Academy of Microbiology, an honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, annually elects fellows “through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology.”

Pogliano’s research focuses on using genetics and cell biology to discover proteins that make up the bacterial and viral cytoskeleton and to discover new antibiotics that kill multidrug resistant bacteria. His lab recently discovered the “phage nucleus”—a structure that some viruses build inside the cell in order to compartmentalize DNA replication from other metabolic processes such as protein synthesis. The phage nucleus confers upon an infected bacterial cell a level of subcellular organization that is remarkably similar to the organization seen in plant and animal cells and allows these viruses to form an efficient, centralized factory to produce the next generation of viruses. 

Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology are eminent leaders in the field of microbiology and are relied upon for authoritative advice and insight on critical issues in microbiology. The 109 members of the 2019 class include members from France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Israel, Korea, Taiwan, China and other countries around the world.

The academy has elected more than 2,400 fellows representing a cross-section of the microbial sciences in basic and applied research, teaching, public health, industry and government service.

Joining Pogliano as a new AAM fellow is Manuela Raffatellu of the Department of Pediatrics in UC San Diego’s School of Medicine.