Director
Shelley M. Payne
Professor, Molecular Biosciences, Distinguished Teaching Professor
Shelley Payne, Interim Director, is a Professor of Molecular BioSciences and University Distinguished Teaching Professor. Her research group studies two major human pathogens, Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera and Shigella species, which cause dysentery. The research focuses on how these two bacteria adapt to life in the human and how they regulate the expression of genes required for causing disease. Dr. Payne is an editor of Infection and Immunity and Current Protocol in Microbiology and served as a member of the Council of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Associate Director
Jaquelin P. Dudley
Professor, Molecular Biosciences, Professor, Department of Oncology
Dr. Jaquelin Dudley received her Ph.D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine with Dr. Janet Butel and did postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco (Dr. Harold Varmus) and University of Wisconsin, McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research (Dr. Rex Risser). In 1983, she joined the Microbiology faculty at The University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently Professor of Molecular Biosciences and Associate Director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease. Dr. Dudley’s research is focused on the molecular biology and pathogenesis of retroviruses, particularly mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), which causes breast cancer and T-cell lymphomas in mice. MMTV provides a good mouse model for understanding diseases caused by human complex retroviruses, such as HIV-1 and HTLV-1, and how these viruses thwart the immune system. Novel retroviral vectors also are being developed for gene therapy.