We are interested in how cells are manufactured. The blueprint for constructing a cell is not encoded in the cell's genes alone; a cell is needed to make a cell. There are many pieces to this problem, each one involving cellular chemistry.

Using E. coli as a model system, we study how bacteria build more cell wall and outer membrane as they grow and divide. We focus on three main aspects of this problem: the assembly and modification of the cell wall, the assembly of outer membrane proteins, and the transport of lipids to the outer membrane.