Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology: Linking Human Health, Microbiology and the Environment

The Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology program at U.C. Santa Cruz seeks to understand environmental poisons and pathogens that harm humans and other living things.

Working within the highly collaborative environment of U.C. Santa Cruz, we use a systems-based approach in research and graduate training, seeking to understand the broad principles of toxicity and pathogenicity.

Our faculty members are leaders in their disciplines and welcome collaborators throughout campus and beyond. Virtually all faculty are engaged in interdepartmental efforts. Chief among our partners are bioinformaticists, chemists, microbiologists, and earth and ocean scientists.

Our educational program prepares students to take an interdisciplinary approach to solve pressing issues in environmental and human health. Graduate students benefit in the classroom and laboratory from the expertise of the program’s faculty and strength of the UC Santa Cruz faculty as a whole.

We are small department with a huge appetite for technology, which has led our faculty members to spearhead the acquisition of funding for major instrumentation facilities. Among the tools available:

• Finnigan Neptune multi-collector magnetic sector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer [learn more]
• 2-D DIGI/MALDI mass spectrometer      [learn more]
• High resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer with lasar ablation   [learn more]
• Thermo electron LTQ-mass spectrometer [learn more]
• Electron paramagnetic instrumentation  [learn more]

More resources [link]

Research Emphases

Movement: Movements of toxins and pathogens through the environment and into humans and other organisms

Mechanisms: Molecular mechanisms of toxins and pathogens

Interplay: Environmental interplay between microbes and toxins

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