休斯敦德克萨斯大学健康科学中心
麦戈文医学院
微生物学和分子遗传学系

我们采用高度跨学科的方法来研究细菌宿主接口的信息交换。推动这项工作的主要问题是“细菌如何感知宿主并反应开启定殖和毒力机制？然后，细菌粘附的生物物理过程如何以促进定植和感染的方式影响宿主？”在加深我们对细菌宿主相互作用的基本生物学的理解的同时，我们同时致力于将发现转化为临床相关的应用，重点是对抗耐药细菌感染的新型疗法。

我们目前正在追求的一些项目是：

1. 开发粘附抑制剂以抵消细菌感染

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to human health, and many bacterial infections are becoming difficult to treat as a result. We are developing novel anti-infectives, which inhibit infections by blocking a pathogen’s ability to stick to tissue and wound surfaces and facilitate their removal from the host. This work involves biochemistry and biological chemistry for the design and characterization of such inhibitors. We also collaborate with mathematicians and clinicians, to predict how modifications to the inhibitors will improve their potency, and then evaluate their use against drug-resistant wound- and surgical site infections.

2. 通过建立合成微生物群落来操纵细菌行为

弧菌霍乱是一种丰富的环境细菌，但是通过消耗被污染的水摄入人宿主，它可以有效地定居肠道并触发严重的腹泻病霍乱。在世界各地的许多地区，这种疾病仍然是地方性的，需要低技术，具有成本效益的方法来防止传播。我们正在开发调节细菌行为的合成材料。例如，包括干扰法定人数感测的材料，细菌的交流方式或模仿环境生物膜，使细菌无毒性的材料。我们使用细菌遗传学，组织培养和斑马鱼感染模型的组合研究了这些材料对细菌表型和感染的影响。

3. 发现细菌如何感知和对胃肠道中的机械提示启动定殖

The five senses – sound, sight, touch, smell and taste – are classically attributed to humans and other higher organisms. They are based on the capacity to perceive physical and chemical cues, and define the way we function within our environment. In contrast, our knowledge of senses in prokaryotes, such as bacteria, is lagging far behind. Our group recently discovered that the sense of touch also occurs in the bacterium大肠杆菌。Enterohehemorrhagic大肠杆菌(EHEC), a major cause of diarrheal disease, responds to subtle variations in force levels it encounters within the host. When force levels increase through adhesive and fluid shear in the GI tract, EHEC switch on the expression of virulence factors. We are investigating how EHEC perceive and transduce the mechanical cues inside the host, and how mechanosensing affects intestinal colonization and disease progression, using a combination of biochemical and genetic assays, and infection models.

PubMed

麦戈文医学院教师

教育与培训

PhD, University of York, 2010

程式

• 微生物学和传染病

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