Agricultural and Life Sciences (IFAS)
Sullivan Lab
Led by Joseph Sullivan · Microbiology and Cell Science
What we study
Recent student projects in this lab have studied how gut bacteria affect infection, testing whether lipids carried on vesicles from Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron change the immune response of mouse macrophages to murine norovirus.
What working here is like
- Wet lab
- Cells in a dish
- Coding helps
- Project
- 1
Current projects
Project Determining the role of OMV-associated bacterial sphingolipids in modulating murine norovirus infection in macrophages
The lab studies how tiny particles from a gut bacterium called Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron affect the immune response to norovirus in mouse immune cells. They found that particles containing a specific lipid called sphingolipid help reduce virus replication, and this effect depends on a protein called TLR‑4. Future work will identify which part of the particle triggers the immune response.
From the Spring 2025 UF Undergraduate Research Symposium · abstract book, p. 565
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
How to reach out
Joseph Sullivan hasn't set up this page yet. You can also look them up in the UF directory (search “Joseph Sullivan”).