Drew Bridges

Drew Bridges studies how bacteria make developmental decisions based on extracellular sensory information. His lab focuses on is the formation and disassembly of multicellular bacterial communities called biofilms. Previously, the Bridges Lab pioneered the use of new imaging approaches to investigate the full biofilm lifecycle in the global pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, from initial cell attachment to biofilm growth, to biofilm disassembly. They combine imaging approaches with techniques including genetics, biochemistry, and biophysics theory to discover and characterize the molecular mechanisms controlling biofilm dispersal.

In the long term, the research program will expand to other microorganisms and their unique lifestyles to learn what principles are general and which are species-specific. These discoveries will be relevant to infection and could inform the development of approaches to manipulate bacterial behavior, potentially leading to new strategies for controlling disease.