Gross is a molecular biologist and professor of cell and tissue biology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).
Gross runs a lab that takes genetic, biochemical, and systems approaches to study regulatory mechanisms of E. coli stress responses, protein interactions in the bacterial transcription apparatus, and genome-wide control of gene expression.
[3] She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Among her notable contributions to the field of microbiology was the discovery, in collaboration with several other scientists, of the Extracytoplasmic Function (ECF) σ factors, proteins that subsequently emerged as the largest group of alternative σ factors and one of the three major pillars of signal transduction in bacteria, alongside one- and two-component systems.
[4] Gross studied botany at Cornell University, then obtained a masters' degree in science education at Brooklyn College.
[10] Gross grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and was encouraged to pursue her scientific interests by a high school biology teacher.