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Welcome:
Lora Hooper
  Dr. Lora Hooper
Professor

214-648-7306

Welcome to the Hooper lab home page. We are in the Department of Immunology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. We are broadly interested in understanding how resident intestinal bacteria influence the biology of humans and other mammalian hosts. Our projects generally involve a mix of experimental approaches, ranging from work with animal models to structural methods for understanding protein function. Please explore our website to find out more about the lab's ongoing research and the people doing the work.

News & Events

October 12, 2020
Drs. John Brooks and Lora Hooper's review article, "Interactions among microbes, the immune system, and the circadian clock" is available online on Springer Nature (https://rdcu.be/b8gTU).

September 27, 2019
Dr. Zheng Kuang's paper, The intestinal microbiota programs diurnal rhythms in host metabolism through histone deacetylase 3, is available on line on Science. (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6460/1428)

September 4, 2019
Dr. Zehan Hu's paper, Molecular basis for retinol binding by serum amyloid A during infection, is available on line on PNAS, https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/09/03/1910713116.full.pdf

We welcomed Alex Crofts, a new postdoctoral researcher in the lab and Nicole Salinas our newest research technician in our Gnotobiotics Core.

May 21, 2019
Dr. Tamia Harry-Tyron's paper, Resistin-like molecule α provides vitamin-A-dependent antimicrobial protection in the skin, is available on line on Cell Host & Microbe, https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(19)30207-0

March 12, 2019
We welcomed Madison Spence our new research tech in our Gnotobiotics Core.

March 5, 2019
We welcomed Eugene Koo, a new graduate student to the lab.

August 9, 2018
We said goodbye and gave our hearty congratulations to Sureka Gattu for receiving her PhD and leaving the lab as she joined the Reata Pharmaceutical team as an analyst.

July 25, 2018
Dr. Breck Duerkop's paper, Murine colitis reveals a disease-associated bacteriophage community, is available online on Nature Microbiology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0210-y

April 19, 2018
Congratulations to Yuhao Wang (student-now postdoc) won the Dean's Discretionary Award for his thesis research in the Integrative Biology Program.

February 5, 2018
Congratulations to Shai Bel for being the 2018 recipient of the Brown-Goldstein Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research at UT Southwestern.

The Hooper Lab welcomes Dr. Chaitanya Dende as he joins the lab as a new postdoctoral researcher.

Congratulations to John Brooks for being selected as a 2017 HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow. The Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program selects and supports exceptional early-career life scientists in academic labs across the U.S. Congratulations to John for this great honor!

October 26, 2017
Congrats to Dan Propheter for his paper in PNAS on a new gut antibacterial protein! http://www.pnas.org/content/114/42/11027.long

September 1, 2017
Congrats to my student Yuhao Wang for his paper in Science on how light and the microbiome come together to regulate metabolism. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6354/912?ijkey=tDHQGlGODynP2&keytype=ref&siteid=sci

August 21, 2017
Check out post-doc Shai Bel's new paper, published online in Science!.

The Hooper Lab is now on Twitter. Follow them at @LHooperLab!

June 3, 2017
Dr. Daniel Propheter presented a talk at the ASM Microbe Meeting in New Orleans. His talk was entitled: Resistin-like molecule beta is an antimicrobial protein that promotes spatial segregation in the colon.

May 26, 2017
Congratulations to Kelly Ruhn for winning an Immunology Departmental Staff Travel Award at the 2017 Immunology Symposium in Ft. Worth, Texas.

May 22, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Tamia Harris-Tryon for receiving the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists.

May 16, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Ye-Ji Bang for receiving a Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America Research Fellowship Award.

September 2016
In September, Dr. Lora Hooper was named as Chair of the Department of Immunology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Hooper was recruited in 2003 and joined the Department of Immunology's faculty as an Endowed Scholar. She became an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2008 and has been recognized by many prestigious scientific organizations including being elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. Dr. Hooper has also served as Vice Chair for the Department, and has been very active in teaching and mentorship. With its 22 faculty members and 72 post docs, students and staff, the Immunology Department has outstanding research programs, a strong commitment to education and core facilities that serve the entire campus.

September 2, 2016
Dr. Breck Duerkop's paper, Molecular Basis for Lytic Bacteriophage Resistance in Enterococci, is available online on mBio. You can access it at http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/4/e01304-16

June 3, 2016
Mihir Pendse's Commentary, Mum's Microbes Boost Baby's Immunity, was published in Nature. Access it here.

June 1, 2016
We welcomed Dr. John Brooks, a new postdoc to the lab.

Congratulations to Kelly Ruhn for winning an Immunology Departmental Staff Travel Award at the 2016 Immunology Symposium in Ft. Worth, TX.

March 7, 2016
Dr. Tamia Harris-Tryon has received a Dermatology Foundation Research Award. Congratulations, Tamia!

October 20, 2015
Dr. Daniel Propheter's paper, Bacteria Come into Focus: New Tools for Visualizing the Microbiota has been published in Cell Host and Microbe. You can access the article at: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Rt3d6t8JEITZS

Dr. Shai Bel's paper, A bacterial nudge to T-cell function has been published in Nature, 526:328-330. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7573/full/526328a.html

October 1, 2015
We welcomed Dr. Zehan (Han) Hu, a new postdoc to the lab

September 16, 2015
Dr. Tamia Harris-Tyron has been invited to present a poster as a part of the enrichment program grant for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund New Award Recipient meeting in Research Triangle Park, NC on October 7, 2015.

September 1, 2015
We have welcomed 3 new post-docs to the lab: Dr. Shai Bel-August 11th , Dr. Ye-Ji Bang-September 1st , and Dr. Zheng Kuang-September 14th.

August 1, 2015
We said good-bye to Dr. Mehabaw Derebe as he continues his path in research a Johnson and Johnson as a Senior Research Scientist. We welcomed Andrew Chara, a rising junior at the University of Washington in Seattle as he did a summer student internship in the lab; and we welcome our newest lab member, Dr. Shai Bel, postdoctoral fellow, who is joining our lab from Bar Ilan University, Israel.

April 28, 2015
Congratulations to Dr. Lora Hooper on her election to the National Academy of Science, one of the highest honors attainable by American scientists

January 21, 2015
Manuel and Breck's paper on intestinal bacteriophage purification methods has been published in BMC Genomics. You can access the article at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/16/7

January 20, 2015
Sohini Mukherjee's review article on Antimicrobial Proteins has been published in Immunity. There is free full-text access through this link through March 11, 2015, so check it out: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1QPEq3qNrULk-S

December 31, 2014
We welcomed 4 new lab members in 2014: Mihir Pendse - Jan 5; Dr. Yun Li - June 16; Dr. Tamia Harris-Tyron- Sept 2 and Brian Hassell - Oct 13 and said good-bye to Xiaofei Yu - Dec 12, and Dr. Shipra Vaishnava - Dec 22.

December 22, 2014
After 8 years working in the Hooper Lab and completing a very successful postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Shipra Vaishnava spread her wings and joined the faculty at Brown University, Rhode Island as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Good luck Shipra!

December 17, 2014
Congratulations to Dr. Mehabaw Derebe: His recent eLife paper was selected for special recognition. According to the eLife website: "The academic editors of eLife have selected four new studies to represent the breadth, quality, and importance of papers invited by the journal, and be featured through the eLife-sponsored presentation series." Mehabaw's paper on the retinol binding function of serum amyloid A was selected as one of the four, and he will have a special opportunity to present his work. Website link: http://elifesciences.org/eLife-news/Four-more-early-career-authors-invited-to-participate-in-a-meeting-at-one-of-eLifes-founders

October 18, 2014
Mehabaw Derebe was invited to present his poster at the AUMF Inaugural meeting at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

September 1, 2014
Congratulations to Dr. Breck Duerkop for being awarded a NIH K01 Fellowship.

June 16, 2014
Congratulations to Lora for receiving the Jonathan Uhr Endowed Chair.

June 13, 2014
Tamia Harris-Tyron presented a poster entitled, Antimicrobial peptides in ocular and cutaneous rosacea, at the John Hopkins Department of Dermatology Research Day

May 6, 2014
Mehabaw Derebe presented his poster entitled, Crystal Structure of Mouse Serum Amyloid A3 and its Implication for Retinol Binding by SAAs, at the HHMI Science Meeting at Janelia Farms, Ashburn, Virginia.

March 5, 2014
Breck Duerkop was an invited speaker at the 4th ASM Conference on Enterococci in Cartagena Columbia, South America. The title of his presentation: Enterococcal bacteriophages, intestinal colonization, and the host innate immune response.

November 21, 2013
Congratulations to Dr. Shipra Vaishnava, who was awarded a Career Development Award from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. Way to go!

May 13, 2013
Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Propheter, who was awarded an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship from the NIH.

March 20, 2013
Congratulations to Dr. Mehabaw Derebe, who was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from UNCF-Merck.

February 28, 2013
A hearty Hooper Lab welcome to new technician Tess Leal. She'll be joining Cassie and Charmaine in maintaining the gnotobiotic mouse facility.

February 19, 2013
Congratulations to Xiaofei Yu for being selected to give a talk at the AAI Annual Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, May 3-7. Xiaofei has also received a travel award to attend the conference. Aloha!

February 18, 2013
Jamaal Benjamin gave an excellent talk at the 2013 Keystone Symposium on Autophagy, Inflammation, and Immunity. Way to go!

January 17, 2013
Lora is the winner of the 2013 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine from the The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas (TAMEST). There's even a video

January 1, 2013
We're delighted to have several excellent new students joining the lab. A special welcome to Xiaoming Zhang, Yuhao Wang, and Sureka Gattu!

October 30, 2012
Congratulations to Jamaal Benjamin for winning a travel award to attend the 2013 Keystone Symposium on Autophagy, Inflammation, and Immunity.

October 12, 2012:
Congratulations to Jamaal Benjamin for having his abstract selected for a talk at the 2012 Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation's Clinical and Research Conference in Hollywood, Florida. The conference will take place December 13 - 15, 2012.

October 8, 2012:
Post-doc Breck Duerkop's paper on intestinal bacteriophage is available on the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

April 12, 2012
Dr. Shipra Vaishnava has won the Spring 2012 Young Investigator Award from the Crohns and Colitis Foundation of America. Congratulations to Shipra!

March 8, 2012
Congratulations to Jamaal Benjamin for being selected to receive a Graduate Fellowship from the United Negro College Fund and The Merck Company Foundation. Nice work, Jamaal!

February 1, 2012
Congratulations to Dan Propheter for being selected for a slot on the Molecular Microbiology Training Grant.

January 17, 2012
Medical student Tom Ju wins a Best Poster Presentation Award at the 2012 UT Southwestern Medical Student Research Forum. Congratulations Tom!

December 23, 2011
Postdoctoral fellow Shipra Vaishnava gives birth to a healthy baby girl, Rohana. Congratulations to Shipra and Raghu!

October 3, 2011
Dr. Daniel Propheter joins the group as a post-doctoral fellow. Welcome Dan!