Brittany Ross

Research Interests:
I am curious how chronically infecting bacteria in the respiratory tract can survive perturbations in their environment particularly through growth modulation. In the Whiteley lab, I am working on delineating the physiological state and growth rate of Mycobacterium abscessus (MAB) when in the human lung using RNA-seq. Additionally, I am working to understand the RNA-seq signatures of the heterogeneous populations in a MAB population. This is particularly important since its generally believed that subpoulations survive antibiotic exposure that allows for long lasting chronic infection.
 
 
About Brittany:
I was born and raised in sunny Riverside California. I attended the University of California Riverside where, under the guidance of Dr. David Lo, I redefined the microbial transcytosis pathway through Microfold cells and I fell in love with science. After doing a short stint as a bartender in Florida (bucket list), I moved to Galveston, Texas, where I first worked as a volunteer in an Ebola lab, then as a research tech, studying pathogenesis associated with biofilm formation of outbreak strain of E. coli O104:H4, and finally, as a graduate student at UTMB. I completed my PhD in Dr. Alfredo Torres' lab, studying high-consequence bacterial pathogens at the Galveston National Lab, Texas. My project focused on the mechanism of bacterial persistence in the BSL3 agent Burkholderia pseudomallei.  I now reside in Tucker, Georgia with my virologist husband and two flatulent but goober-ish Boston Terriers named Watson and Crick.  I love to climb and bake and work each day at being a bad-ass at all that I apply myself towards, which is currently being a postdoc and at the game of Scrabble. 
 
 Publications:
Click here for a list of publications from Brittany.