People

Research Interests: The role that genes play in a plant's response to its environment

Research Interests: Virology, Innate Immunity, Host-Virus Interactions, Host-Virus Evolution

Research Interests: We study host-parasite interactions between the intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii and its hosts. Toxoplasma can cause severe disease but its virulence differs, often quite dramatically, depending on the infecting strain and the host. Our focus is to identify genes of Toxoplasma that modulate the host cell and/or determine virulence, host genes and pathways that determine resistance/susceptibility, and to characterize their specific interactions.

Research Interests: The Savage lab studies interactions between pathogens, the microbiota, and host. In particular, I currently focus on how the microbiota promotes a heathy colonocyte immunometabolism and how this interaction is altered during disease, putting the host at risk of infection with pathogens and pathobionts. My overall research goal is to understand the basis behind these host-microbiota interactions during health so that host health can be supported with therapeutics during microbial disruption to prevent a loss of colonization resistance.

Research Interests: Understanding the molecular mechanisms that mediate the interactions between enteric pathogens, the gut microbiota, and the intestinal epithelium.

Research Interests: Cell-mediated immune responses to HIV and other viruses in mucosal tissues

Research Interests: Involves leveraging insights from pathogen studies to enhance the understanding of host cellular processes. His lab primarily focuses on identifying the virulence mechanisms that drive Pseudomonas aeruginosa pathogenesis in wound infections, as well as investigating the eukaryotic host responses aimed at controlling these infections.

Research Interests: Mosquito-borne flaviviruses such as dengue virus and Zika virus are a source of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. We study how these viruses hijack host machinery through virus-host protein interactions to better understand their replication and develop therapeutics. We use complementary techniques of global proteomics, genetics, and high-throughput sequencing to tackle these questions.

Research Interests: Dr. Shapiro's research interests include transport and fate of zoonotic pathogens in watershed and coastal ecosystems; effects of landscape change and climate variability on disease transmission; impacts of water scarcity and impaired quality on human and animal population health, and food safety. Topics of research projects currently span zoonotic infectious disease; waterborne infectious disease; food safety; wildlife population health; human public health and epidemiology.

Research Interests: Computational enzyme design & engineering novel biosynthetic pathways