Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a Gram-negative, halophilic, human pathogenic bacterium ubiquitous in the marine environment. Like many Vibrio species, V. parahaemolyticus commonly associates with shellfish, particularly oysters. Ingestion of a raw or under cooked oysters contaminated with V. parahaemolyticus can cause gastroenteritis, which is typically self-limiting and rarely causes death. Globally,...
The pathogen Vibrio cholerae uses cations as a primary currency of virulence
and environmental persistence, using gradients of those cations to move, acquire
nutrients, and control virulence gene expression. An understanding of the overlapping
roles of bioenergetics and chemotaxis in the virulence and environmental survival of
V. cholerae issues from...
Vibrio bacteria are commonly found in freshwater, marine, and estuarine environments. Members of this genus can exist in commensal relationships with marine animals or as planktonic bacteria, however, they are well known for their roles as pathogens towards humans and animals. In this dissertation, I investigated aspects of host-bacteria relationships...
Curbing overall disease burden with faster intervention requires early stage and accurate diagnostics. Ultrasound (US) provides a safe, nonionizing, inexpensive, and noninvasive imaging modality that has become commonplace in diagnostics. Paired with the relatively new technology of photoacoustic imaging (PAI), optical level resolution becomes feasible with the deeper signal penetration...
Clostridium perfringens type A isolates, an anaerobic enterotoxigenic spore forming bacterium, are the third leading cause of food-borne disease in the United States. Factors that contribute to the virulence of C. perfringens include the ability of the bacterium to form heat resistant spores and to produce an enterotoxin (CPE). Although...
Clostridium perfringens is a Gram-positive, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that can produce as many as 17 different toxins and are responsible to cause a wide array of gastrointestinal (GI) and histotoxic diseases in humans and animals. As individual strains produce a subset of these toxins, C. perfringens strains can be classified...
C. perfringens is a spore-forming, gram-positive, anaerobic pathogenic bacterium capable of causing a wide variety of diseases in both humans and animals. However, the two most common illnesses in humans are C. perfringens type A food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses. Interestingly, these two major diseases are...
Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a leading cause of acute gastroenteritis associated with consumption of seafood, particularly raw oysters. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 45,000 cases of V. parahaemolyticus infection occur each year in the U.S. A recent CDC report revealed that the incidence of...
Carboxylic acids have played an important role in the field of actinide (An) and lanthanide (Ln) separations and the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel. Recent bench-scale experiments have demonstrated that 3-carboxy-3-hydroxypentanedioic acid (citric acid) is a promising aqueous complexant that can effectively aid in the separation of transition metals from...
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen that infects immunocompromised individuals such as those suffering from burns or the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis. This organism utilizes a cell-cell communication mechanism known as quorum sensing (QS) to coordinate virulence gene expression and biofilm formation. It has three interconnected QS systems, namely...