Email
sshell@wpi.edu
Office
60 Prescott Street – Life Sciences & Bioengineering Center, Room 4024
ORCiD
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1136-1728
Lab Website
Affiliated Department or Office
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Education
BA Smith College, Biological Sciences 2001
PhD University of California, San Diego, Biomedical Sciences 2008

I have a passion for understanding how living systems work, as well as for sharing my love of biology and research with the next generation of scientists and informed citizens.

The central goal of my lab is to understand the regulatory mechanisms that underlie mycobacterial stress tolerance. We combine genetics, genomics, transcriptomics and biochemistry to understand how mycobacteria respond to, and ultimately survive, stressful conditions.

Our guiding principles are curiosity, respect, and scientific rigor. Together we strive to push the boundaries of knowledge and advance our field by addressing basic research questions that hold the keys to advancements in human health and understanding of the natural world.

Visit Digital WPI to view student research and projects advised by Professor Shell.

Email
sshell@wpi.edu
Affiliated Department or Office
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Education
BA Smith College, Biological Sciences 2001
PhD University of California, San Diego, Biomedical Sciences 2008

I have a passion for understanding how living systems work, as well as for sharing my love of biology and research with the next generation of scientists and informed citizens.

The central goal of my lab is to understand the regulatory mechanisms that underlie mycobacterial stress tolerance. We combine genetics, genomics, transcriptomics and biochemistry to understand how mycobacteria respond to, and ultimately survive, stressful conditions.

Our guiding principles are curiosity, respect, and scientific rigor. Together we strive to push the boundaries of knowledge and advance our field by addressing basic research questions that hold the keys to advancements in human health and understanding of the natural world.

Visit Digital WPI to view student research and projects advised by Professor Shell.

Office
60 Prescott Street – Life Sciences & Bioengineering Center, Room 4024
ORCiD
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1136-1728
Lab Website
Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being

SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

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Preview Good Health & Well-Being Goal

To treat many infectious diseases, including the global scourge of tuberculosis, doctors must do battle with a wily adversary, bacteria. Unfortunately for afflicted patients, bacteria have also acquired strategies for thwarting attacks from the immune system and the onslaught of antibiotic drugs. We need to know more about the strategies bacteria use to survive stresses. Biology and biotechnology professor, Scarlet Shell, is seeking to do just that by probing the molecular changes that underlie these mechanisms.

Research Interests
Bacterial Stress Response
Regulation of Gene Expression
Genomics and Transcriptomics
Tuberculosis
RNA Processing and Degradation
Antibiotic Tolerance and Resistance
Antibiotic Discovery

Scholarly Work

Nguyen, T.G.*, Vargas-Blanco, D.A.*, Roberts, L.A, and Shell, S.S. (2020). The impact of leadered and leaderless gene structures on translation efficiency, transcript stability, and predicted transcription rates in Mycobacterium smegmatis. Journal of Bacteriology. doi: 10.1128/JB.00746-19 *Joint first authors. 2020

Vargas-Blanco, D.A., Zhou, Y., Zamalloa, L.G., Antonelli, T., and Shell, S.S. (2019). mRNA Degradation Rates Are Coupled to Metabolic Status in Mycobacterium smegmatis. mBio, DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00957-19. 2019

Vargas-Blanco, D.A., and Shell, S.S. (2020). Regulation of mRNA Stability During Bacterial Stress Responses. Frontiers in Microbiology. 11:2111. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.02111. 2020

Martini, C.M., Zhou, Y., Sun, H., and Shell, S. S. 2019. Defining the Transcriptional and Post-transcriptional Landscapes of Mycobacterium smegmatis in Aerobic Growth and Hypoxia. Frontiers in Microbiology, 10: 591. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00591 2019

Datta, P., Ravi, J., Guerrini, V., Chauhan, R., Neiditch, M.B., Shell, S.S., Fortune, S.M., Hancioglu, B., Igoshin, O., Gennaro, M. L. 2015. The Psp system of Mycobacterium tuberculosis integrates envelope stress sensing and envelope preserving functions. Molecular Microbiology. doi:10.1111/mmi.1303

Shell, S. S., Chase, M. R., Ioerger, T. R., & Fortune, S. M. 2015. RNA sequencing for transcript 5'-end mapping in mycobacteria. Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.), 1285, 31–45. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2450-9_3.

Professional Affiliations
ASM - American Society for Microbiology
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Professional Highlights & Honors
Chair, Mechanisms of Microbial Transcription GRC, 2025
WPI Board of Trustees Award for Outstanding Advising, 2019
Sigma Xi Award for Outstanding Research and Scholarship (WPI), 2020
NSF CAREER grant, 2017 - 2022

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