Name: Amal Amer
Email: amal.amer@osumc.edu
Department: Microbial Infection and Immunity
Lab Manager/Dept Contact: Mighun Anne
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty Email
Previous Mentoring: Yes (funded)
Category of research: Translational
Research Description: The role of autophagy in Alzheimer's disease. We have been working on autophagy for 20 years in many disease conditions including infection and cystic fibrosis. We performed a methylomic analysis using RRBS of samples from brains of human patients with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The nalysis identifed several major players in the autophagy pathway that may explain the pathobiology of Alzheimer's disease.
Specific areas of Research Emphasis: Aging; Immunology; Neuroscience
Department: Microbial Infection and Immunity
Preferred Method of Contact: Website
Previous Mentoring: Yes (funded)
Category of research: Basic; Translational
Research Description: A quarter of all human deaths can be attributed to infection each year and treatment options are becoming more limited with a dramatic increase in multi-drug resistant microbes. Hence, a better understanding of the interaction between microbes and the immune system is essential for making discoveries that will ultimately translate to the clinic in terms of better diagnostics, biomarkers, therapies and vaccines.
Goals Include:
- Direct interdisciplinary programs that lead to the development of top-tier researchers whose findings will broadly impact human health.
- Use innovative model infectious disease systems that will accelerate discovery of diagnostic tools, therapeutics, and vaccines that can be translated into improved personalized patient care.
- Maintain a collaborative training environment with mentorship that fosters intellectual creativity and instills passion in the next generation of scientists to perform cutting edge research in microbial infection and immunity.
- Be international leaders in microbiology and immunology.
Name: Luanne Hall-Stoodley
Email: Luanne.Hall-Stoodley@osumc.edu
Department: Microbial Infection and Immunity
Lab Manager/Dept Contact: Gillian Clary
Lab Manager/Dept Contact Email: Gillian.Clary@osumc.edu
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty Email
Previous Mentoring: Yes (funded)
Category of research: Basic
Research Description: Project title: Xenophagy and clearance of nontuberculous mycobacteria in macrophages from people with cystic fibrosis Our lab studies strategies that pathogenic bacteria use to persist and cause chronic infections in the human respiratory tract. This project focuses on Mycobacterium abscessus, a highly antibiotic-resistant pathogen that has emerged as a common cause of nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infection worldwide. M. abscessus affects people with chronic inflammatory lung diseases, including cystic fibrosis (CF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Although people with CF are more susceptible to chronic infection with M. abscessus, the mechanisms underlying pathogenesis and persistent infection are not well defined. Our preliminary data show that human CF macrophages are more susceptible to M. abscessus intracellular growth. Pathogenic mycobacteria can survive in macrophages by exploiting autophagy, a homeostatic cellular pathway that targets and removes damaged macromolecules, organelles, or infectious agents by sequestration in a distinct compartment for degradation. Intracellular pathogens can interfere with and evade a type of selective autophagy known as xenophagy to promote their survival. We hypothesize that M. abscessus disrupts xenophagy in CF macrophages by a combination of hostand pathogen-driven determinants that results in a failure to restrict M. abscessus intracellular growth and contributes to inflammation. The goal of this project is to gain novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying intracellular M. abscessus growth and subsequent pro-inflammatory signals in CF macrophages with the long-term goal of restoring pathogen clearance.
Specific areas of Research Emphasis: Infectious Disease; Lung Disease; Microbial Pathogenesis
Name: Namal Liyanage
Email: namal.liyanage@osumc.edu
Department: Microbial Infection and Immunity
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty Email
Previous Mentoring: No (never applied)
Category of research: Translational
Research Description:
- Understanding the role of innate and adaptive immune system during HIV infection
- Development of novel strategies to prevent and control HIV.
- Understanding the immunopathology of HIV/TB, HIV/HCV and HIV/Zika co-infections and Dengue infection
Specific areas of Research Emphasis: Immunology Infectious Disease, and Microbial Pathogenesis
Name: Jacob Yount
Email: yount.37@osu.edu
Department: Microbial Infection and Immunity
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty Email
Previous Mentoring: No (Never applied)
Category of research: Basic
Research Description: Our laboratory is defining cellular defense mechanisms active against pathogens. In particular, we study post-translational modifications that regulate the activity of host defense proteins. Such modifications are often critical for immune responses, yet the enzymes that add these modifications are in most cases unknown. An ongoing project in the lab involves the anti-influenza virus protein IFITM3. The activity of this protein is tuned positively and negatively by two post-translational modifications, palmitoylation and ubiquitination, respectively. We are actively seeking to identify the enzymes that mediate these modifications as the palmitoylating enzymes may represent novel influenza virus disease susceptibility genes while the ubiquitin ligases may be promising drug targets for improving immune responses.
Specific areas of Research Emphasis: Molecular Virology and Gene Therapy, Immunology, Infectious Disease