Pathogenesis Program
by
cmburt01
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last modified
Mar 23, 2011 12:13 PM
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Infectious diseases are responsible for a third of all preventable deaths in the world today. Factors including the emergence of new pathogens, increased antibiotic resistance, and a lack of effective vaccines all contribute to the ongoing threat posed by mankind’s oldest enemies. New challenges are also posed by the potential for inappropriate use of biological agents as weapons. The Interdisciplinary Program in Pathogenesis focuses on the interactions of microbial pathogens with host cells and tissues, including the mechanisms utilized by these organisms to overcome host immune responses and cause disease. Understanding infectious diseases requires a interdisciplinary approach that encompasses pathogen molecular microbiology, eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell biology, and molecular and cellular immunology. This approach is essential to understand the complex mechanisms by which pathogens cause disease at the molecular, cellular, immunological, and pathological level. Comprehensive research strategies used by the laboratories in our program provide the fundamental information necessary for the development of novel treatments, design of effective vaccines, and discovery of other innovative means of disease prevention. This interdisciplinary scientific environment is a unique advantage to the training that graduate students receive in our Pathogenesis Program. Active areas of research being carried out by the Faculty that participate in the Program include: - Interactions between pathogens and host macrophages - Molecular mechanisms of pathogen invasion of host cells - Microbial modulation of host cell vessible trafficking - Manipulation of immune cell migration and signal transduction - Proteomic analyses of intracellular growth and persistence - Biology of microbial latency in chronic infections - Microbial genomics and in vivo metabolism - Mechanism of action of microbial immunotoxins - Regulation of microbial virulence gene expression - Mechanisms of biofilm development and maturation - Mechanisms of microbial cell-to-cell communication - Co-evolution of zoonotic viruses and their hosts Microorganisms under study in the laboratories of Faculty in the Program include the intracellular bacterial pathogens Legionella pneumophila, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium, Rhodococcus equi, Francisella tularensis, Chlamydophila pneumoniae,Chlamydia trachomatis, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans,Yersinia pestis, Influenza, Hantavirus, SARS Coronavirus, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Burkholderia mallei, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Porphyromonas gingivalis. Studies of the intimate interactions of these pathogens with their respective host cells and immune systems allow students in the Program to explore the diverse mechanisms by which bacteria cause disease, and the host cellular processes that these pathogens manipulate and exploit during infection. These include fundamental host cellular functions such as rearrangement of the cytoskeleton, endocytic and exocytic vesicular trafficking, signal transduction, phagosomal biogenesis, and apoptosis. |
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2011 M&I Holiday Party
