SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
I have a passion for understanding how living systems work, as well as for sharing my love of biology and research with the next generation of scientists and informed citizens.
The central goal of my lab is to understand the regulatory mechanisms that underlie mycobacterial stress tolerance. We combine genetics, genomics, transcriptomics and biochemistry to understand how mycobacteria respond to, and ultimately survive, stressful conditions.
Our guiding principles are curiosity, respect, and scientific rigor. Together we strive to push the boundaries of knowledge and advance our field by addressing basic research questions that hold the keys to advancements in human health and understanding of the natural world.
Visit Digital WPI to view student research and projects advised by Professor Shell.
I have a passion for understanding how living systems work, as well as for sharing my love of biology and research with the next generation of scientists and informed citizens.
The central goal of my lab is to understand the regulatory mechanisms that underlie mycobacterial stress tolerance. We combine genetics, genomics, transcriptomics and biochemistry to understand how mycobacteria respond to, and ultimately survive, stressful conditions.
Our guiding principles are curiosity, respect, and scientific rigor. Together we strive to push the boundaries of knowledge and advance our field by addressing basic research questions that hold the keys to advancements in human health and understanding of the natural world.
Visit Digital WPI to view student research and projects advised by Professor Shell.
Scholarly Work
Martini, M.C., Hicks, N.D., Xiao, J., Barbier, T., Sixsmith, J., Fortune, S.M., and Shell, S.S. Loss of RNase J leads to multi-drug tolerance and accumulation of highly structured mRNA fragments in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. bioRxiv. 2022.02.13.480260; doi: 10.1101/2022.02.13.480260. 2022
Martini, M.C., Sun, H., and Shell, S.S. 2021. RNA sequencing for transcript 5'-end mapping in mycobacteria. Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2314, 513-531. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1460-0_22. 2021
Martini, M.C., Zhang, T., Williams, J.T., Abramovitch, R.B., Weathers, P.J., and Shell, S.S. (2020) Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra extracts exhibit strong bactericidal activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 262:113191. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2020.113191. 2020
Randall, S.E.*, Martini, M.C.*, Zhou, Y., Joubran, S.R., and Shell, S.S. (2020). MamA essentiality in Mycobacterium smegmatis is explained by the presence of an apparent cognate restriction endonuclease. BMC Research Notes. 13(1):462. doi: 10.1186/s13104-020-05302-z. *Joint first authors. 2020
Vargas-Blanco, D.A., and Shell, S.S. (2020). Regulation of mRNA Stability During Bacterial Stress Responses. Frontiers in Microbiology. 11:2111. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.02111. 2020