Microbes, Immunity and Inflammation | Biomedical and Molecular Sciences | School of Medicine

Research in this field focuses on fundamental questions at the cellular and molecular level involving viral and bacterial organisms and the immune system. Research areas include pathogenic and nonpathogenic organisms, inflammatory responses associated with infection, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases, cancer and cardiovascular disease, and advances in therapeutic strategies including drug and vaccine development.

Faculty

B. Banfield: Molecular characterization/analysis of viral proteins important in signal transduction in herpes simplex virus, varicella-zoster virus and pseudorabies virus

S. Basta: Virus-host interactions, focusing on the immunobiology of antigen presenting cells

I. Brockhausen: Biochemical mechanisms underlying diseases such as inflammation, infections and cancer.

C. Colpitts: Virus-host interactions and innate immune evasion by positive-sense RNA viruses

A. Ellis: Allergic diseases

K. Gee: Cytokine expression and function regulation during infection and inflammation

N. Ghasemlou: Immune response to nervous system injury and disease

C. Lohans: Antibiotic resistance, focusing on beta-lactam antibiotics and beta-lactamases

A. Majury: Respiratory viral infections, pandemic influenza, environmental microbiology, epidemiology, zoonotic diseases and public health

N. L. Martin: Understanding how Salmonella typhimurium, a common cause of food poisoning, senses and adapts to changes in environments relevant to infection

M. Szewczuk: Role of Toll-like receptors in inflammation and infection

W. Wobeser: HIV and epidemiologic studies of Tuberculosis