An infectious disease can be defined as an illness due to a pathogen or its toxic product, which arises through transmission from an infected person, an infected animal, or a contaminated inanimate object to a susceptible host. There are several scientific practices in place to identify and/or treat an infectious disease.
Congenital CMV is the most frequent infectious cause of neonatal malformation in developed nations. It is more prevalent than other neonatal conditions such as spina bifida and Down syndrome...
The selective pressure placed on the resident microbiota by local changes in the host environment – DNA damage, chronic inflammation, metabolic shifts, barrier damage, reduced immunosu...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, is spreading rapidly across the world and was announced as a “global pandemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO) o...
Microbial biofilms form on all aquatic surfaces and can harbor pathogenic bacteria. In the aquaculture industry, Flavobacteria species can cause serious diseases and lead to high mortality....
Viruses are the causative agents of approximately 12% of human cancers. The most recently discovered herpesvirus, Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) is known to cause three human canc...
The microbiome has emerged as a major contributor to human health and disease. Numerous sources implicate shifts in the gut microbiome as potentially pathologic for a variety of autoimmune d...
Focusing on the urgent clinical problem of increasing carbapenem resistance in Enterobacteriaceae we have been evaluating detection methods in clinical microbiology and molecular transmissio...
Lessons around leveraging high-complexity next-generation sequencing tests for precision infectious disease discovery to guide patient treatment and improve health outcomes. Learning Objecti...
The transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) to pathogenic microbes is a major concern in modern medicine. Antibiotic therapies are often rendered ineffective by horizontal acquisiti...
The host response to infection is a critical determinant of virus pathogenicity. Emerging viruses require the host cellular machinery to replicate and successfully infect new hosts, and must...
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that is caused by the immune system’s inability to respond appropriately to an infection. How sepsis can change the gut microbiome in ways that a...
Asthma is an increasing health concern affecting more than 25 million individuals in the United States and more than 300 million individuals worldwide. In some cases, sensitization or exposu...
Epidemics are occurring at an increasing pace and scale. Our laboratory group has developed platform technologies for discovery of broad and potent neutralizing antibodies for many emerging...
HIV currently infects almost 40 million people worldwide. The virus is responsible for ~2 million new infections per year and ~1 million deaths. Like all retroviruses, HIV integrates a viral...
My group is addressing fundamental questions in evolutionary biology, using both genome- and phenotype-first approaches. A few years ago, we discovered that Arabidopsis thaliana is a great m...
To establish productive infection, plant viruses need to be able to efficiently invade and spread within a plant. Most viruses are introduced into a plant via the epidermal or mesophyll cell...
Prokaryotic DNA contains three types of methylation: N6-methyladenine, N4-methylcytosine and 5-methylcytosine. The lack of tools to analyse the frequency and distribution of methylated resid...
Human chromosome 19q13.4 contains genes encoding killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR). The region has certain properties such as single nucleotide variation, structural variation,...
Influenza severity is determined by the interplay between the virus and the host response. Previously, we identified a three-pronged lung gene expression signature that predicted severe infl...
As a response to various inflammatory stimuli, neutrophils and macrophages expel a mixture of their nuclear and granular elements in the form of extracellular traps (ETs). These web-like sub...
The statement by Dimitri Ivanovsky in 1882 that "the sap of leaves infected with tobacco mosaic disease retains its infectious properties even after filtration through Chamberland filte...
The regions of our genome responsible for encoding the genes that regulate our immune response are some of the most complex and polymorphic known. This complexity encompasses multiple types...
Traditionally, virology has been focused in studying the pathogenic effect of viruses. In the recent years, however, this perception is changing and viruses are being studied as mutualistic...
Over the last several decades, antibodies (Abs) have become a valuable weapon in the fight against viral infections, with several studies demonstrating the importance of both neutralizing an...
Congenital CMV is the most frequent infectious cause of neonatal malformation in developed nations. It is more prevalent than other neonatal conditions such as spina bifida and Down syndrome...
The selective pressure placed on the resident microbiota by local changes in the host environment – DNA damage, chronic inflammation, metabolic shifts, barrier damage, reduced immunosu...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, is spreading rapidly across the world and was announced as a “global pandemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO) o...
Microbial biofilms form on all aquatic surfaces and can harbor pathogenic bacteria. In the aquaculture industry, Flavobacteria species can cause serious diseases and lead to high mortality....
Viruses are the causative agents of approximately 12% of human cancers. The most recently discovered herpesvirus, Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) is known to cause three human canc...
The microbiome has emerged as a major contributor to human health and disease. Numerous sources implicate shifts in the gut microbiome as potentially pathologic for a variety of autoimmune d...
Focusing on the urgent clinical problem of increasing carbapenem resistance in Enterobacteriaceae we have been evaluating detection methods in clinical microbiology and molecular transmissio...
Lessons around leveraging high-complexity next-generation sequencing tests for precision infectious disease discovery to guide patient treatment and improve health outcomes. Learning Objecti...
The transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) to pathogenic microbes is a major concern in modern medicine. Antibiotic therapies are often rendered ineffective by horizontal acquisiti...
The host response to infection is a critical determinant of virus pathogenicity. Emerging viruses require the host cellular machinery to replicate and successfully infect new hosts, and must...
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that is caused by the immune system’s inability to respond appropriately to an infection. How sepsis can change the gut microbiome in ways that a...
Asthma is an increasing health concern affecting more than 25 million individuals in the United States and more than 300 million individuals worldwide. In some cases, sensitization or exposu...
Epidemics are occurring at an increasing pace and scale. Our laboratory group has developed platform technologies for discovery of broad and potent neutralizing antibodies for many emerging...
HIV currently infects almost 40 million people worldwide. The virus is responsible for ~2 million new infections per year and ~1 million deaths. Like all retroviruses, HIV integrates a viral...
My group is addressing fundamental questions in evolutionary biology, using both genome- and phenotype-first approaches. A few years ago, we discovered that Arabidopsis thaliana is a great m...
To establish productive infection, plant viruses need to be able to efficiently invade and spread within a plant. Most viruses are introduced into a plant via the epidermal or mesophyll cell...
Prokaryotic DNA contains three types of methylation: N6-methyladenine, N4-methylcytosine and 5-methylcytosine. The lack of tools to analyse the frequency and distribution of methylated resid...
Human chromosome 19q13.4 contains genes encoding killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR). The region has certain properties such as single nucleotide variation, structural variation,...
Influenza severity is determined by the interplay between the virus and the host response. Previously, we identified a three-pronged lung gene expression signature that predicted severe infl...
As a response to various inflammatory stimuli, neutrophils and macrophages expel a mixture of their nuclear and granular elements in the form of extracellular traps (ETs). These web-like sub...
The statement by Dimitri Ivanovsky in 1882 that "the sap of leaves infected with tobacco mosaic disease retains its infectious properties even after filtration through Chamberland filte...
The regions of our genome responsible for encoding the genes that regulate our immune response are some of the most complex and polymorphic known. This complexity encompasses multiple types...
Traditionally, virology has been focused in studying the pathogenic effect of viruses. In the recent years, however, this perception is changing and viruses are being studied as mutualistic...
Over the last several decades, antibodies (Abs) have become a valuable weapon in the fight against viral infections, with several studies demonstrating the importance of both neutralizing an...
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