Alexis Lomakin, Ph.D.

I am a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, trying to use self-propelled intracellular bacteria as kinematic probes for studying mechanical properties of the host cell. Physical properties of living cells and tissues appeared to be crucially involved in many physiological and pathophysiological processes such as emryo- and tumorigenesis. However, our understanding of the physical biology of the cell is still in its infancy mainly due to the lack of appropriate experimental tools and models. My experimental strategy contrasts conventional approaches that cell biologists utilize to explore or manipulate basic cell processes. Traditionally, investigators have relied heavily on pharmacological or genetic interventions which are rarely perfectly specific due to massive cell stimulation and compensatory cell responses. Since pathogenic bacteria have co-evolved with their hosts and fine-tuned their interactions, human cell biologists can learn much about basic mammalian cell activities by watching how bacteria have learned to interfere with them.