Sablefish is a highly sought after seafood delicacy for which aquaculture of this species has recently been developed. By understanding the immunological functions in sablefish, our goal was to develop a mammalian fluorescent bioparticle assay that can viably analyze the efficiency of phagocytosis, an important function of the immune system....
The HIV pandemic continues to impose enormous morbidity, mortality and economic burdens across the globe. Simultaneously, innovations in antiretroviral therapy, diagnostic approaches and vaccine development are providing novel tools for treatment-as-prevention and prophylaxis. We developed a mathematical model to evaluate the added benefit of an HIV vaccine in the context...
Research in Dolan lab focuses primarily on the adaptive immune system and ways it can be better utilized to eliminate infected or transformed cells. Research focuses on the major histocompatibility (MHC) class I antigen presentation pathway, which plays an important role in alerting the immune system of the presence of...
Background:
As Zika virus continues to spread, decisions regarding resource allocations to control the outbreak underscore the need for a tool to weigh policies according to their cost and the health burden they could avert. For example, to combat the current Zika outbreak the US President requested the allocation of...
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), transmitted by tsetse flies, has historically infected hundreds of thousands of individuals annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last decade, concerted control efforts have reduced reported cases to below 10,000 annually, bringing complete elimination within reach. A potential technology to eliminate HAT involves rendering the flies...
Background: Epidemiological studies of disease exposure risk are frequently based on observational, cross-sectional data, and use statistical approaches as crucial tools for formalising causal processes and making predictions of exposure risks. However, an acknowledged limitation of traditional models is that the inferred relationships are correlational, cannot easily distinguish direct from...
The purpose of this project is to study which methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCPs) are related to chemotaxis of Vibrio cholerae. 44 MCP mutant strains were tested in seven different chemoattractants and the resulting swarm circle size was compared to that of C6706 lac-Z wildtype. Several genes were identified that resulted...
The infection biology of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis has recently crystallized, with added details surrounding intestinal invasion. The involvement of pathogen-derived effector proteins such as the major membrane protein, oxidoreductase, and fibronectin attachment proteins have been uncovered. Mutations constructed in this pathogen have also shed light on genes needed for...
Genetic-modification strategies are currently being developed to reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases, including African trypanosomiasis. For tsetse, the vector of African trypanosomiasis, a paratransgenic strategy is being considered: this approach involves modification of the commensal symbiotic bacteria Sodalis to express trypanosome-resistance-conferring products. Modified Sodalis can then be driven into...
Clostridium difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen that has become a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
There is a general consensus that C. difficile spores play an important role in C. difficile pathogenesis, contributing to infection,
persistence, and transmission. Evidence has demonstrated that C. difficile spores have an outermost layer,...