Sundstrom Lab at Dartmouth Medical School

Mailing Address:

Paula Sundstrom Lab, HB7550 Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology Dartmouth Medical School 2003 Hanover, NH 03755

Telephone:

(603) 650-1629

E-mail:

Paula.Sundstrom@Dartmouth.edu

Dr. Sundstrom received her B.A. degree specializing in biochemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She decided to pursue a career in microbiology and became a Medical Technologist at the Santa Monica Hospital and Medical Center after acquiring certification as an MT(ASCP). In the process of identifying microbes in patient specimens, Dr. Sundstrom was confronted first-hand by the destructive potential of microbial pathogens and intrigued by the diversity and harmlessness of the normal microbial flora. Dr. Sundstrom decided to pursue research in the field of molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis and performed pre-doctoral work at the University of Washington in Seattle, obtaining an M.S. and Ph.D degrees. As a graduate student, Dr. Sundstrom independently pioneered the study of fungal surface proteins by developing methods to identify adhesins that are induced during bud-hypha transitions of Candida albicans and are important for virulence. After receiving her Ph.D. Dr. Sundstrom was recruited to the University of California at Irvine to study mechanisms of morphogenesis of the environmental fungus Mucor racemosus and was awarded a Bank of America Gianinni Foundation Fellowship in Medical Research for her post-doctoral work. Dr. Sundstrom initiated an independent, externally-funded research program to study molecular mechanisms of fungal adhesion in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center in Fort Worth. In 1994 Dr. Sundstrom was recruited to the College of Medicine and Public Health at The Ohio State University where she discovered a novel mechanism of covalent adhesion between C. albicans germ tubes and mammalian epithelial cells (Science 283:1535-1538, 1999). In 2000 Dr. Sundstrom received a highly competitive Scholar Award in Molecular Pathogenic Mycology from the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation. Dr. Sundstrom was recruited to Dartmouth Medical School in the Fall of 2003 and was promoted to Professor in 2006. Dr. Sundstrom is frequently invited to present her work at scientific meetings in the USA and internationally and is recognized for advancing the understanding of the pathogenesis of candidiasis. She is the senior author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications and book chapters. Her research is aimed at elucidating the relationship between hyphal morphogenesis and virulence attributes and to define mechanisms of cross-talk between mammalian hosts and C. albicans that result in the protean pathogenic potential of C. albicans, the most important fungal pathogen of humans.

Previous Laboratory Members

Postdoctoral Fellows

Guohong Huang, Ph.D.

Samin Kim, Ph.D. Ph.D.

Michael J. Wolyniak, Ph.D.

Christiane Rollenhagen, Ph.D.

Gomathinayagam Ponniah

Janet F. Staab, Ph.D.

Yeon-Ki Kim, Ph.D.

Jianhua (Sandy) Ni, Ph.D.

Peter Rubinelli, Ph.D.

Yufang Tang, Ph.D.

Graduate Students

Pamela Postlewaite, M.S.

Yong-Sun Bahn, Ph.D.

Undergraduate Students

Gregory Frechette

Srikanth Batchu

Brian Y. Zhao

Danish Iqbal

Brian Bell

Matthew Farrell

Robert Kennedy

Howard Rothbaum

Gregory Applegate

Heather Andrews

Erin McCrae

Scott Deering

Tatum Phan

Krissy Kigerl

Darin Avery

Carla Hay

Jennifer Tatayanaboon

David Guistino

Matthew Molenda

Danielle Miller

Payat Patel

Steven May