Our Research Areas

Microbial dysbiosis in the gut and the lung is increasingly being associated with the incidence and severity of asthma; however, causality studies are lacking. We have adapted a mouse model that focuses on the onset of allergic asthma early in life after an in-utero exposure to environmental particles to study how the microbiome may lead to the asthma onset. In this model, we have shown that maternal exposures to allergen or particulate matter, e.g., concentrated urban air pa

Pandemic Influenza. While the molecular and epidemiological effects of influenza infection in pulmonary tissue are well-documented, the effects of infection in other organs remains unclear. Several clinical and experimental studies have shown influenza virus to be cardiotropic, with virus disseminating from the lungs to cardiac tissue early after severe infection. The scientific premise for these studies comes from the extensive clinical evidence of aberrant cardiac pathologi

Using bacteriophage endolysins as parallel therapeutic and immunizing approaches against pneumococci. An emerging way to address the growing antimicrobial resistance problem is the use of bacteriophages and bacteriophage endolysins. Endolysins are enzymes that can degrade the bacterial peptidoglycan, killing and dispersing biofilm bacteria and its matrix. In preliminary studies, we have purified the endolysins Pal and Cpl-1 from S. pneumoniae (Spn) bacteriophages Dp-1 and Cp-

Using commensals to reduce and or counter antimicrobial resistance (AR). Our current studies aim to use commensal bacteria and their products to decrease AR infections through 3 aims: 1) Systematic testing of human commensals for antimicrobial functions on AR ESKAPE pathogens. 2) Bioinformatics mining for bacterial biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding antimicrobials. 3) Determine the identity of antimicrobial/antibiofilm substances using HPLC, proteomics and NMR. Devel