The University of Iowa Department of Microbiology together with the Carver College of Medicine will host E. Peter Greenberg, PhD on October 15 as part of the Distinguished Biomedical Scholars Lecture Series. Greenberg’s talk, “The Social Life of Bacteria,” will also be the first annual Michael A. Apicella Endowed Lecture in Microbiology. Distinguished Biomedical Scholars Lecture Series features a monthly seminar by a top-tier physician/scientist performing high-impact research in their field.

E. Peter Greenberg received his MS from The University of Iowa and his PhD from The University of Massachusetts—Amherst. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, Greenberg joined the microbiology faculty of Cornell University. While at Cornell, he served on the editorial boards of several scientific publications and was elected to the membership of the American Academy of Microbiology, and the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1985, Greenberg became the co-director of the Microbiology Summer Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and was elected to the organization’s membership in 1987.

Greenberg joined the faculty of The University of Iowa in 1988. At the UI, Greenberg served as director of the Gene Regulation in Bioremediation Research Training Program and the Keck Foundation Microbial Communities and Cell Signaling Program. He also served as associate director of the UI Cystic Fibrosis Research Center. In 2000, Greenberg was named the Virgil L. and Evalyn Shepperd Professor of Molecular Pathogenesis. He was then elected to the fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology Board of Governors. In 2004, Greenberg became an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

Greenberg is currently professor of microbiology at The University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Greenberg also served as department chair from 2005-2007.

Dr. Greenberg’s research program focuses on the emerging field of sociomicrobiology. His laboratory is concerned with the biochemistry and molecular biology of environmental sensing and response in bacteria with an emphasis on a chemical communication between bacteria termed quorum sensing. The laboratory also studies the mechanisms by which bacteria switch from a nomadic existence to a sessile biofilm lifestyle and the mechanisms underlying the ability of biofilm bacteria to survive antibiotics. Finally, the Greenberg laboratory is interested in the ways in which clonal populations of bacteria can discriminate themselves from other clonal populations. All of these phenomena are of importance in pathogenesis.

Greenberg will speak Thursday, October 15 at 4 pm in the Urmila Sahai Seminar Room located in the Medical Education and Research Facility (2117 MERF). The seminar is free and open to the public.  Further information about the Distinguished Biomedical Scholars Lecture Series including a schedule of upcoming seminars is available at http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/research/.