Pilot Project: The interferon response of a model Chiropteran bat, the black flying fox, P. alecto

Bats are natural host reservoirs for a variety of viruses, many of which are responsible for significant illness and mortality in humans, livestock and companion animals.  Although bats may be persistently infected with many viruses, they rarel...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Modeling T cell migration in lymph nodes

T cell trafficking is critical to immune responses as naïve T cells constantly recirculate into and out of lymph nodes to survey for cognate antigen presented on dendritic cells. While many cell surface receptors including selectins, chemokine ...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Uncovering conserved mechanisms of cardiac fibrosis using Drosophila

The overall goal of this project is to develop and validate the Drosophila system as a model for understanding the mechanisms of cardiac fibrosis. Fibrosis in the mammalian heart is the result of an inflammatory response to aging and cardiac injury ...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Host Transcriptomic Response to Acute Respiratory Viral Infection

The objective of this study is to examine clinical respiratory viral infections to elucidate gene expression patterns that may underlie clinical disease. We will delineate if the host gene response to respiratory viral infection is virus specific an...view full abstract

Pilot Project: The immune system of a parasite and its contribution to the defense of the host-parasite unit.

Host-parasite symbionts involve the complex interaction of two interconnected biological systems with a net flow of energy and nutrients.  Once the symbiosis establishes, the host and parasite can be viewed as a unit, often acting and appearing...view full abstract

Pilot Project: How does climate change alter the activities of pathogens and symbionts to affect host health?

Climate change is predicted to increase the incidence of plant disease, potentially threatening the global food supply. As microbes have greater capacity than plant hosts to adapt quickly to changing climates, microbial community fluctuations and fu...view full abstract

Pilot Project: The roles of host tolerance and resistance in defense against pathogens

Hosts may use two different strategies to ameliorate negative effects of pathogen attack: resistance (the ability to limit parasite burden) or tolerance (the ability to limit damage). There is increasing recognition that these two strategies may be ...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Improved microbiome profiling using emulsion PCR and long-read sequencing

A well-functioning microbiome is required for normal development and health in plants, animals and humans. Yet microbiomes with altered composition can result from or cause disease. Culture-independent, high-throughput molecular microbiome profiling...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Comparative transcriptomics of immune-related genes in cyprinid fishes

We propose to develop a comparative transcriptomic database that will facilitate analysis of nucleotide sequence divergence and tissue-specific expression patterns of genes involved in adaptive and innate immune response across three species of cypr...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Pathogen-immune interactions of acute infections: the role of waning immunity in pre-vaccine disease dynamics

An understanding of the historical interaction between pathogens and host immunity is essential to a clear view of contemporary disease dynamics. The public record of United States telegraphic case reports is an extensive and unexploited resource th...view full abstract

Pilot Project: Diversity and host-parasite dynamics of avian malaria along a tropical altitudinal gradient

Human malaria parasites that sicken more than five percent of the global human population annually comprise only four species in a single genus. This represents a miniscule fraction of the phylogenetic diversity of malaria, most of which occurs in b...view full abstract