Professor
Department of Biochemistry | Department of Chemistry
Douglas B. Weibel is the DuPont Young Professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Engineering at UW–Madison. He is an expert on biochemistry and biophysics of bacteria and other microbes. Professor Weibel received a B.S.degree in Chemistry from the University of Utah in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cornell University (with Jerrold Meinwald) in 2002. From 1996–1997 he was Fulbright Fellow in Japan (with Yoshinori Yamamoto). He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemistry at Harvard University (with George M. Whitesides) from 2002–2006. He joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006.
Talks:
The Secret Social Life of Bacteria
Bacteria are one of the most prevalent organisms in the environment. They are found in nearly every niche on earth: geothermal vents, snowdrifts in Antarctica, insect guts, aerosols in the lower atmosphere, insects, and vertebrates (where they outnumber mammalian cells by a factor of 10!). Although bacteria are single celled organisms and lack a neurological system, communities of bacteria are capable of making sophisticated decisions that enable them to adapt to diverse environments. In this talk Professor Weibel describes one of the mechanisms that bacteria use to coordinate their behavior in communities, which leads to community decision-making and important consequences on the transmission of infectious diseases and human health.
Approximate length of talk: Variable
It's a Small World After All: A Day in the Life of Molecules and Cells
The behavior of molecules influences cells in fundamental ways and gives rise to very complex behaviors. This talk describes how the diffusion of molecules controls development and behavioral biology and produces remarkably sophisticated biological phenomena.
Approximate Length of Talk: Variable