The Carlson research group seeks to address the public health emergency of antibiotic resistance. Traditional antibacterial drugs directly kill bacteria, which results in the rapid evolution of resistance. Our innovative approach is to instead block the ability of bacteria to sense and respond to their surroundings. We are working to dramatically expand the community's understanding of how bacteria interact with their environment and how this can be disrupted to weaken a pathogen’s ability to cause disease.
Our research is highly multidisciplinary - members gain expertise in probe and inhibitor design and synthesis, mass spectrometry, biochemistry, proteomics and metabolomics, molecular biology, and microbiology.
6/2026: Congratulations to Caroline on being named an IRACDA Fellow!
6/2026: Congratulations lab alum, Dr. Deepti Sharan who has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Microbiology at the University of Delhi, South Campus, New Delhi
6/2026: Congratulations lab alum, Dr. Conrad Fihn who has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Bates College
5/2026: Congratulations to Alessandra on defending her thesis!
5/2026: Alessandra to on acceptance of her paper, “Cobalt and nickel ion synergy promotes gene amplification and stable metal resistance in Shewanella oneidensis” into Applied and Environmental Microbiology!
Covalent Inhibitors for Bacterial Histidine Kinases
Rodriguez, P. D.;† Fihn, C. A.;† Goswami, M.; Carlson, E. E. Chem. Comm., 2026, 62, 5482-5486.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/cc/d5cc06657c
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Learn more about the efforts of our department and Professor Carlson in an eNews article and on the departmental website to promote a welcoming and safe environment to learn and perform research.
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