{"id":8060,"date":"2026-07-01T04:07:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T08:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/profile\/conrad-a-fihn\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T13:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T17:34:06","slug":"conrad-a-fihn","status":"publish","type":"faculty-profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/profile\/conrad-a-fihn\/","title":{"rendered":"Conrad A. Fihn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Occidental College (B.A. Chemistry)<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">University of Minnesota &#8211; Twin Cities (PhD, Medicinal Chemistry) <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">University of California, Santa Cruz (Postdoc)<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fihn lab uses tools from mass spectrometry, chemical biology, molecular biology, and microbiology to study how bacteria communicate and regulate pathogenic behavior. In particular we are studying quorum sensing in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pseudomonas aeruginosa<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, where chemical signals allow bacterial populations to coordinate behaviors such as biofilm formation, motility, toxin production, and antibiotic resistance. Our work combines mass spectrometry-based screening, biosynthetic approaches, and microbiological assays to discover new signaling molecules, understand how structural changes to these signaling molecules influence biological activity, and explore ways to disrupt bacterial communication. Ultimately, we aim to better understand the chemistry underlying bacterial signaling and identify new strategies for weakening pathogenic bacteria without relying solely on traditional antibiotics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Interested in working in the lab on these projects? Check out my website below and fill out the interest form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1987,"featured_media":8222,"template":"","class_list":["post-8060","faculty-profile","type-faculty-profile","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","expertise-chemical-biology","expertise-mass-spectrometry","expertise-medicinal-chemistry","expertise-microbiology","expertise-secondary-metabolite-biosynthesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/8060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/faculty-profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1987"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/8060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8229,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-profile\/8060\/revisions\/8229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}