The Vogel lab strives to chart the full cosmos of noncoding RNA functions and RNA-binding proteins in major bacterial pathogens and the thousand different bacteria that make up the human microbiome. We develop new RNA-seq based techniques to rapidly capture the RNA world of any microbe, ideally at the level of single cells, and understand how and why bacteria use RNA as a regulator as they infect humans.

We ask basic mechanistic questions of RNA Biology but also apply this knowledge for an RNA-centric manipulation of the microbiota. We also have projects on specific bacteria that run the gamut from our major workhouse Salmonella Typhimurium to anaerobic microbes associated with colorectal cancer such as Fusobacterium nucleatum. There are four main research areas in the lab which are all highly interactive.