Vibrio cholerae & Streptococcus pneumoniae

The long-term goals of my laboratory are to increase our knowledge and understanding of the pathogenicity and transmission of mucosal pathogens. We are currently using two human pathogens, the Gram-negative water-borne intestinal pathogen Vibrio cholerae, which is the causative agent of epidemic diarrhea (cholera) in third world countries, and the Gram-positive pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is a major cause of pneumonia and otitis media throughout the world, as model mucosal pathogens in our studies. Our primary focus is identifying and characterizing those pathogen genes and their protein products that are specifically expressed during various stages of the infectious process. For this, we are employing a number of molecular and genetic techniques and the use of several murine models of infection...

Because bacteria are extremely efficient organisms and generally express genes only in environments where they are needed, investigation of genes expressed during infection continues to be a fruitful endeavor. Specifically, it is providing important data on the (i.) growth physiology of V. cholerae and S. pneumoniae at host mucosal sites, (ii.) pathogenic factors elaborated during infection, (iii.) regulatory proteins which coordinate these events, and (iv.) host stimuli which induce expression of these genes. We are now shifting part of our focus to determining the precise roles that these various proteins play in infection including any interactions with host molecules