Department of Biochemistry and Redox Biology Center Seminar Series

"The biophysics of bacterial biofilms\: mechanisms of staphylococcal intercellular adhesion"

The Herr lab uses biophysical and structural approaches to illuminate how key staphylococcal proteins mediate host adhesion and biofilm formation. They showed that the surface protein Aap self-assembles in the presence of zinc to form twisted, rope-like structures between staphylococcal cells in a nascent biofilm. This work led to the development of an antibacterial platform that was licensed and taken to clinical trials. Recent work has focused on the role of Aap in adhesion to healthy skin and protein-DNA interactions leading to biomolecular condensate formation in the biofilm matrix.