The Department of Microbiology at UT Knoxville is dedicated to providing the quality education, through both teaching and research, necessary to meet the needs of this growing field.  Our faculty members aggressively pursue research in many areas of the science: immunology; virology; microbial ecology and pathology; microbial genetics; and others.  Research projects are continuously conducted through collaboration with and support from various prominent sources, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Science Foundation (NSF), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and NASA, among others.

Undergraduate students gain valuable experience in the lab by working under one of the professors; faculty also work extensively with post-graduate level students, often publishing numerous articles on their collaborative experimentation and study.  Focus may be on such notable areas as herpes virus or coronavirus research, on studying the impact of viruses on marine and freshwater food webs, or on sequencing genes in pathogenic fungi.