Microbiology & Immunology
Through new discoveries and state of the science training of future physicians and scientists, the graduate program of Microbiology & Immunology strives to be a world-class center of excellence in biomedical research. This mission evolved from the realization that while we cannot imagine our global village without germs, we can imagine a world without potentially preventable and treatable microbial and autoimmune diseases. Researchers focused in Microbiology & Immunology in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology, have created numerous in vivo and in vitrosystems to study basic mechanisms of the immune response as well as bacterial and viral pathogenesis. A recent thrust of research within the department is to use the information garnered from mammalian and microbial genomes projects to discover new genes that mediate the inflammatory response, HIV infections, and bacterial diseases.
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| Mechanisms of lymphocyte signal transduction |
| Differentiation of lymphocyte subsets, antigen presentation |
| Generation of antigen receptor diversity |
| Understanding systemic inflammatory responses (e.g., sepsis) |
| Understanding autoimmune diseases (e.g. type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases, lupus, and multiple sclerosis). |
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| HIV biology |
| Mechanisms of retroviral gene expression |
| Biology of RNA viruses |
| Identification of virulence factors for pathogenic bacteria including staphylococci, anthrax bacilli, Helicobacter pylori and Clostridia (botulinum and difficile ) |
| Development of Biotechnology that is applicable to studies of signal transduction, vaccine design, functional genomics, and proteomics |