Host-Pathogen Seminar Series 2006-2007

Anne Goldfeld MD, Associate Professor: Division of Medical Sciences, Harvard Medical School

A specific family of HLA alleles with elevated risk for progression to active pulmonary tuberculosis disease have been identified among a group of Cambodian rural poor suffering from one of the highest global incidences of TB. The lab is continuing to expand the initial assessment of HLA alleles with disease and anergy, and attempt to establish the clinical relevance of anergy and HLA type in TB, to explore the molecular mechanisms involved in anergy at the transcriptional level, and explore the role of bacterial products in transient anergy.

Jeff Miller PhD, Professor: Microbiology, Immunolgy, and Molecular Genetics, UCLA

Understand how bacterial genes that mediate host-microbe interaction are regulated in vitro and in vivo, using Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella bronchiseptica as experimental systems. Specific areas of interest include: a) molecular biology of signal transduction in pathogenic bacteria, b) genetic organization of the Bordetella virulence regulon, and c) in vivo and in vitro studies of mechanisms of pathogenesis. Investigate mechanisms involved in the induction of cytotoxic T cell responses by Listeria monocytogenes. Use recombinant Listeria as probes to ask fundamental questions regarding antigen processing and develop a new class of live Listeria-based vaccines with activity against heterologous pathogens and tumors.

Michael Starnbach PhD, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School

Cellular and molecular approaches in the analysis of T-cell responses to bacterial pathogens, including Chlamydia trachomatis, Salmonella typhimurium, Shigella flexneri, and Bacillus anthracis. Understand the role of CDB⁺ T-cell in immunity to the obligate intracellular pathogen C. trachomatis. The use of anthrax toxin to deliver CD8⁺ T-cell epitopes to the cytoplasm of host cells. Constructing anthrax toxin fusions which contain epitopes from a variety of bacteria, viruses and tumors. 

Frank DeLeo PhD, Investigator: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID

The interaction of human polymorphonuclear leukocytes with pathogenic bacteria to gain insight into the molecular basis of human innate host defense. Multiple methodologies, including genomics, are used to elucidate features of pathogen-PMN interactions that underlie evasion of the innate immune response or contribute to disease. Genomics and proteomics approaches are being employed to understand processes in human PMNs that contribute to resolution of the innate immune and inflammatory responses.

"Evasion of Innate Host Defense by Bacterial Pathogens"

Jo Rae Wright PhD, Professor: Department of Cell Biology, Duke University Medical Center

Investigate the surfactant mediated regulation of innate immune cells, adaptive immune cells, and cells involved in pulmonary diseases such as asthma. Study pathways involved in surfactant metabolism that help regulate the pool of functional surfactant, employing an array of techniques including immunological, cell biological, molecular biology, physiology, and microscopy.

"The Alveolar Environment & Surfactant: Balancing Host Defense & Inflammation "