Steven Gregory Lab

Dr. Steven T. Gregory

Dr. Gregory's lab studies ribosomes and how antibiotics affect them and may lead to antibiotic resistance.

Ribosomes are small molecular machines that take information from DNA and use it to make proteins. Ribosomes are important because they make all proteins that perform necessary work for the cell. Proteins perform the cell's waste removal, transports molecules within the cell, contributes to the cell's interactions with other cells, and much much more!

Many antibiotics are used to target ribosomes in the cell. It is important to research how antibiotics affect ribosomes because ribosomes are essential to the cell. Dr. Gregory's lab uses antibiotics to induce mutations in ribosomes. These mutations can then be studied as to how different parts of the ribosome functions, asking the question: What may cause antibiotic resistance if a ribosome is mutated?

There are on average 2-3 undergraduates in this lab at a time. Some important skills and instruments used in this lab are molecular cloning, working with model organisms, purifying ribosomes, chemical probing, and much much more.

The major lab interests are:

Determining the structural basis of antibiotic resistance,

and

studying information that can potentially accelerate the development of new antimicrobial agents effective against resistant pathogens.

If interested, best to contact through email: stgregory@uri.edu