How bacteria defend themselves against viruses.

Our research currently focuses on how bacteria fight their viruses called  phages and the conservation of anti-phage systems in all domains of life. We are driven by many questions. What is the diversity of anti-phage systems and how does it emerge? What are the molecular mechanisms of microbial immune systems? Can bacteria produce small molecules to target viruses? Can we discover novel human immune genes based on their similarity with bacterial antiphage systems ?
Discover what it’s all about in the research section.
 
We employ a wide range of disciplines mixing bioinformatics and experimental approaches including (but not limited to) genomics, phylogenetics, bacterial genetics, phage biology … We analyze thousands of genomes from all living organisms and work primarly in the lab on two bacterial species Escherichia and Streptomyces.

We are a group of scientists currently working at Institut Pasteur fascinated by microbes and their diversity. Learn more about our team.

We are also passionate about diversity outside of microbes ! We think science should be more inclusive and shared outside of the scientific world. This is why we have many projects linking science and society summarized in the outreach part of the website.

Quick video to understand what it’s about ?

To explain what we do, we decided to create small videos on our science, both in English and in French. They are hosted on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@mdmlab/videos.
Discover below a short introduction to bacterial immunity !