Press

January 2023: Really nice write-up by Talia Ogliore on Sara Sander’s work on bacterial cell cycle regulation in single cells in the WashU Record. A fun, pandemic-initiated collaboration with Kunaal Joshi and Sri Iyer-Biswas at Purdue! Paper here.

November 2021: ASM Podcast: Cell Growth and Cell Size With Petra Levin

Petra Levin joins TWiM to tell three stories from her laboratory: how starvation induces shrinkage of the bacterial cytoplasm; plasticity of E. coli cell wall and how it influences antibiotic resistance across different environments; and induction of antibiotic resistance by Triclosan.

July 2021: Do These Gadgets Actually Protect You? We Asked the Experts

E. coli cells go from nutrient-rich (left) to nutrient-free conditions (right). The cytoplasm (green) and the periplasm (red) can be seen. / Credit: Kerwyn Casey Huang laboratory, Stanford University

June 2021:

Shrinking to survive: Bacteria adapt to a lifestyle in flux

Bacteria Can Shape-Shift to Survive in Different Conditions

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August 2019: Are Antibacterial Products with Triclosan Fueling Bacterial Resistance? 

July 2019: ‘Antibacterial’ Chemical in Consumer Products Causes More Harm by Making Bacteria Stronger

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Mutant E. coli strain imaged by phase contrast microscopy (left) and scanning electron microscopy (right) at pH 7.0 (top) and pH 4.5 (bottom). Scanning electron microscopy images taken in collaboration with the Washington University Center for Cellular Imaging. (Photo: Elizabeth Mueller)

April 2019:  Specialist Enzymes Make E. coli Antibiotic Resistant at Low pH

March 2019

Avoiding Triclosan

Germ-Killing Chemical Shields Bacteria From Antibiotics

A sua pasta de dentes pode estar a sabotar os seus antibióticos

Ingredients in Toothpaste, Mouthwash May be Creating Antibiotic Resistant Germs

Dentifrice: le triclosan pourrait rendre inefficace vos antibiotiques

Common Over-the-Counter Ingredient Deactivates Antibiotics 

February 2019

A Common Household Ingredient Might Sabotage Your Antibiotics 

Triclosan, l’antibatterico, presente in molti saponi e dentifrici, che mette KO gli antibiotici

Антисептик из вашей зубной пасты мешает работать антибиотикам

Un Produit Antibactérien Populaire Interférerait avec les Antibiotiques

Our Obsession With Germs is Actually Making Us Sick

Chemical Found in Toothpaste Could Strengthen Bacteria 

Chemical Added to Consumer Products Impairs Response to Antibiotic Treatment

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Dantas, Kranz and Levin: Three faculty members named microbiology fellows
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August 2018: Bacteria in a Changing Environment

June 2017

A Little Place for my Stuff: How big bacteria grow depends on how much fat they can make

Die Grenzen des Zellwachstums (The limits of cell growth)

December 2016: Antibacterial Products May Help Bacteria Beat Antibiotics (New Scientist)

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, are so uniform in size they look like they were made in a factory. How do the bacteria manage to keep their size so uniform? (Credit: CDC)

January 2015: How Bacteria Control Their Size

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Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus bacteria dividing. (Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

August 2014: Zombie bacteria are nothing to be afraid of (Check out the accompanying animation!)

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FRIDAY, FEB. 14, 2014 – Petra Levin (left) and Joseph Jez are co-directors of the plant and microbial sciences program at Washington University. Photo by Jerry Naunheim Jr./WUSTL Photos

April 2014: Danforth Fellowships in Plant Sciences announced

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Norbert Hill (“Bisco”), the first author of the PlosGenetics paper, in the lab. He worked out the signaling pathway in E. coli that connects nutrient levels to cell division, largely by studying mutant strains of E. coli with broken pathways.

August 2013: Protein that delays cell division in bacteria may lead to the identification of new antibiotics

July 2007: Researchers discover pathway to cell size, division