Britton Strickland
University of Southern Mississippi
Suman Das lab
My work focuses on the defining the role of the microbiome in respiratory disease outcomes, particularly respiratory syncytial virus. Early-life RSV infection appears to have a substantial impact on the risk of developing respiratory morbidity, including recurrent wheezing and subsequent asthma in children, and there are currently no primary preventive strategies for these disorders. By bridging the fields of bioinformatics and microbiology, we aim to manipulate the commensal microbiome to enhance health and prevent disease. This work relies heavily on a cotton rat model, bioinformatic modeling/statistics, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, disease pathobiology, and clinical cohorts.