3 post-doctoral fellows, 2 medical students

My laboratory has three major areas of interest: 1) An NIH-funded program of International Collaborations in Infectious Disease Research, in collaboration with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to analyze human mucosal immune responses following natural V. cholerae infection, to analyze gene expression in V. cholerae directly in human samples, to use human immune responses following cholera to identify bacterial genes uniquely expressed during human infection, and to use this information to develop an improved cholera vaccination strategy; 2) Analyzing the genes and gene products involved in the molecular pathogenesis of bacterial infection, particularly diarrhea caused by gram-negative pathogens such as Vibrio cholerae and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), and the regulation of these genes in response to environmental stimuli in vitro, in animal models, and in human infection; 3) Development of live, attenuated strains of V. cholerae as vaccine vectors to deliver heterologous antigens to the common mucosal immune system.

Selected recent references:

• Harris JB, Khan AI, LaRocque RC, Dorer DJ, Chowdhury, F, Faruque ASG, Sack DA, Ryan ET, Qadri F, Calderwood SB. Blood group, immunity, and risk of infection with Vibrio cholerae in an area of endemicity. Infect Immun 2005; 73: 7422-7427.
• LaRocque RC, Harris JB, Dziejman M, Li X., Khan AI, Faruque ASG, Faruque SM, Nair GB, Ryan ET, Qadri F, Mekalanos JJ, Calderwood SB. Transcriptional profiling of Vibrio cholerae recovered directly from patient specimens during early and late stages of human infection. Infect Immun 2005; 73:4488-4493.
• Butler SM, Nelson EJ, Chowdhury N, Faruque SM, Calderwood SB, Camilli A. Cholera stool bacteria repress chemotaxis to increase infectivity Mol Micro 2006; 60:417-426.
• Schild S, Tamayo R, Nelson EJ, Qadri F, Calderwood SB, Camilli A. Genes induced late in infection increase fitness of Vibrio cholerae after release into the environment. Cell Host and Microbe (in press).
• Nelson EJ, Chowdhury A, Harris JB, Begun YA, Chowdhury F, Khan AI, LaRocque RC, Bishop AL, Ryan ET, Camilli A, Qadri F, Calderwood SB. Complexity of rice-water stool from patients with Vibrio cholerae plays a role in the transmission of infectious diarrhea. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (in press).