​OUR GOAL
The goal of our research is to broadly understand how bacteria stimulate animal development, expanding our fundamental knowledge of how bacteria benefit animals and potentially yielding new methods to manipulate microbes for beneficial purposes.​

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WE ARE RECRUITING!

2020/21 We are seeking enthusiastic Master's and PhD students to join our team! Inquire with Nick for details: nshikuma@sdsu.edu

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LEARN ABOUT OUR RESEARCH

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SEE OUR RECENT PUBLICATIONS

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CHECK OUT OUR TEAM MEMBER PAGE

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LAB NEWS

August 2020 PhD students, Kyle and Amanda, both win prestigious ARCS Scholarships!

August 2020 Amanda's first, first-author publication is in press at Environmental Microbiology! We reveal a hidden complexity of interactions between a single bacterial species, the factors it produces and two species of animal larvae.

July 2020 We discovered that genes encoding a distinct Contractile Injection System is present within a majority of healthy human microbiomes. Our new paper is in press at mSystems! Check it out!

June 2020 Undergraduate, Milagros Esmerode, starts a PhD program at UCSB in the Fall! Go Mimi!

September 2020 Our new review on bacteria-stimulated metamorphosis in Annual Review of Microbiology is in press! 

April 2020 Nick receives a prestigious NSF CAREER Award! Here's the news story.

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December 2019 We discovered that human gut bacteria encode a novel syringe-like structure. Check out our new preprint on bioRxiv!

October 2019 Thank you NPR and KPBS for covering our research on bacteria and biofouling!

October 2019 A new video explaining our recent work on 'Death Stars' from bacteria.

September 2019 Check out our new paper in eLife! We discovered the first protein from bacteria that stimulates animal metamorphosis! 

​July 2019 We discovered that bacteria produce tiny syringe-like structures that inject a toxin into animal cells, opening the possibility for using them as novel drug delivery systems. Now in CellReports!

​Here's a news brief on our paper in the San Diego Union Tribune.

February 2019 Our latest Preprint hits the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric! Bacterial Phage Tail-Like Structure Kills Eukaryotic Cells by Injecting a Nuclease Effector.

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