We study how the interactions between enteric bacterial pathogens, the gut microbiota and the immune system influence chronic infection and transmission to new hosts. Salmonella is one of the model pathogens that we study. Salmonella typhi cause systemic diseases such as typhoid fever. we also explore interactions between Salmonella and immune cells, such as macrophages. We have shown that persisting Salmonella exploit the metabolic immune state of alternatively activated macrophages in order to cause chronic infections.
We are very interested in human-adapted Salmonella and are trying to understand the evolution of the strains of Salmonella that cause typhoid fever. Recently we have developed a tool to study the genomes of various Salmonella and how the genes contribute to surviving the various stresses that the pathogens encounter during infection, including human macrophages.