Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics

Message from the Chair

The Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics (MIMG) includes internationally recognized faculty in the related disciplines of structural biology, bacterial physiology, bacterial development and gene regulation, bacterial pathogenesis, virology and viral pathogenesis, molecular and cellular parasitology, immunology, molecular genetics, cell biology, stem cell biology and cancer.  Our faculty publish in leading journals and they make contributions at the national and international levels through service on government committees, grant review panels, editorial boards, and advisory boards of foundations and corporations.  MIMG faculty are as committed to excellence in teaching as they are to research and our teaching contributions span the UCLA College, the ACCESS program in the Biomedical Sciences, and the David Geffen School of Medicine.  For 2009 and for the past five years, U.S. News and World Report has ranked MIMG as one of the top 10 Microbiology departments in the country and our total research funding is also among the highest in the nation.

MIMG is an unusually diverse department and we view this as one of our greatest strengths.  Our mission, in its most fundamental sense, is to leverage scientific diversity to facilitate cutting edge interdisciplinary research and teaching.  Our strategy for accomplishing this is to recruit the very best faculty, fellows and students, to develop a research infrastructure that provides both state of the art and newly emerging technologies, and to continue to forge cross disciplinary alliances with other institutes, centers and departments at UCLA.  Our departmental plans for growth and development are designed to synergize with the strengths of our principal partners in the David Geffen School of Medicine, the Division of Life Sciences in the UCLA College, the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the UCLA AIDS Institute, the UCLA Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, and the Molecular Biology Institute.

It is a pleasure to invite you to explore our department through the MIMG web portal.  Here you will find links to late-breaking news, faculty research interests and publications, our undergraduate and graduate teaching programs, and information regarding the UCLA campus and the vibrant research environment it provides.  I hope you enjoy your tour of MIMG!

Jeff F. Miller
M. Philip Davis Chair in Microbiology and Immunology
Professor and Chair
Dept. of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics
UCLA