mSphere Legacy: Fritz about Fritz

Looking back over the past 50 years, staphylococcal research has evolved from a relatively narrow niche into a broad, interdisciplinary field encompassing genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, host-bacterium interactions, immunity, microbial ecology, the microbiota, and commensalism. My career progressed in parallel with these research developments. Much of what contributed to my success was the ability to recognize emerging questions early on, to combine classical microbiology with new technologies as they emerged, and to collaborate with talented students and colleagues across disciplines. Despite the diversity of the topics I have explored, my work has consistently been driven by a central question: what do staphylococci do, and how do they manage to persist so tenaciously? A brief overview of my research interests may illustrate this trajectory.