Dr. Justin A. Thornton
Principal Investigator
Professor
My research program focuses on mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and host immune responses aimed at limiting disease. Our primary pathogen of interest is Streptococcus pneumoniae, although we have collaborative projects focused on an array of organisms.
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If you are an undergraduate genuinely interested in research, or a potential graduate student, please contact me to see if we have vacant spots in the lab. If you are a researcher with similar interests, I am always looking for new collaborations, so feel free to contact me.
Graduate Students
Abbey Cassibry
M.S. Student
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Milisen Tvarkunas
M.S. Student
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Prattay Dey
Ph.D. Student
I did my undergraduate at the ShahjalaI University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. I joined the Thornton Lab in Fall 2021 as a graduate student and my current research focus is to figure out the role of apoptosis based on bacterial infections, primarily Streptococcus pneumoniae. I use flow cytometry, different molecular techniques, and a mouse model to investigate the cell response, post bacterial exposure.
Isidora Fereday
M.S. Student
I have been a member of the Thornton lab since 2018, when I began doing undergraduate research. I am now working on identifying conserved adhesins of Streptococcus pneumoniae which are vital for colonization, but do not trigger an immune response. The end goal of this research is to identify proteins which could be included in a serotype-independent vaccine against pneumococcus.
Yuri Laguna-Terai
M.S. Student
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Undergraduate Students
Previous Graduate Students
Dan Kennedy, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Baylor College of Medicine
Yoonsung Hu, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
FDA - National Center for Toxicological Research
Lindsey Burcham, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept of Microbiology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Katie Heath, M.S.
Researcher III
University of Alabama
at Birmingham