Dr. Melissa Jones earned her Ph.D. from the University of Florida studying virulence of foodborne bacterial pathogens. After her first post-doc at UNC-Charlotte investigating host-pathogen interactions, she returned to UF as a Research Assistant Professor in the lab of Dr. Stephanie Karst and shifted her research focus to studying interactions between commensal bacteria and noroviruses. This work led to the development of the first in vitro culture system for human noroviruses. Her work demonstrated that the presence of commensal bacteria enhanced human norovirus infection of B cells in vitro and murine norovirus infection in the murine distal ileum. Dr. Jones later joined the Microbiology and Cell Science department at UF and established her own research program focused on viral-bacterial interactions and how these interactions influence norovirus pathogenesis, innate immune responses to norovirus infection, and molecular mechanisms of norovirus replication. Her lab recently discovered that noroviruses induce stress responses in commensal bacteria which lead to the increased bacterial production of extracellular vesicles. Through continued investigation, they have found that that these EVs stimulate anti-viral immune responses through STING and TLR4 mediated pathways which ultimately lead to suppression of murine norovirus replication. More recently, the lab has found that increased bacterial EV concentrations in the intestinal tract leads to suppression of viral replication. This information will provide key insight into critical host-bacterial-virus interactions that can be targeted for the development of future therapeutic and prevention strategies.