Prof. Imlay investigated the mechanism of oxidative DNA damage, using Escherichia coli as a model system, while a grad student with Stu Linn at Berkeley. He then was a postdoc with Irwin Fridovich at Duke, where they sought the mechanism by which reactive oxygen species are made in bacteria. In 1992 He joined the faculty in the microbiology department at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). Much of their effort has focused upon the mechanisms by which oxidants damage cells. To that end they discovered that oxidatively stressed cells lose the functions of key iron-dependent mononuclear metalloenzymes. Several of these end up being mismetallated with zinc. This was the phenomenon that pushed them to think about the processes that control which metal ends up in which enzyme.