Dr. Zackular is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan where he studied the role of the gut microbiota in colorectal cancer in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick Schloss. He joined the laboratory of Dr. Eric Skaar at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for his postdoctoral fellowship where he studied the role of dietary metals and nutritional immunity in C. difficile infection.

Dr. Zackular’s research is focused on understanding how interactions between the host, gut microbiota, and pathogenic microbes impact human health and disease. His recent efforts center on understanding how the important nosocomial pathogen, C. difficile, interacts with resident gut microbiota during infection and how interspecies cross-talk impacts growth, behavior, and virulence of this pathogen. Dr. Zackular’s research draws from a number of diverse fields including microbial ecology, bacterial pathogenesis, biochemistry, host-pathogen interactions, and microbiota research.

BS, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, 2008

MS, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, 2009

PhD, University of Michigan (Microbiology), 2014

Fellowship, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2018

Investigator

Assistant Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine