What is host-pathogen entanglement
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Our bodies are designed with tools to fend off invading pathogens. This includes both physical barriers, like skin, and our highly evolved immune system. For a virus to be successful in replicating, it must overcome these barriers. This leads to many different pathogens evolving mechanisms to bypass the host primary defense systems. In response, the host must find unique ways to overcome the evolving pathogens.
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What does this all result in? A complex battle happening inside our bodies where both the pathogen and host are attempting to outsmart the other. This battle is taking place in a dense and complex environment with other cells present and factors such as extracellular matrix proteins and lipids all affecting what the outcome of the battle may be. This creates an entangled web of interactions.
Studying a battle from both sides can help you learn what went wrong and what worked in fighting off the invader. Then, in future battles, applying this knowledge can help lead to more favorable outcomes. The main goals of the HoPE lab is to better characterize the host-pathogen interactions in these complex environments and learn the ways the host can win. We can then apply this information in the form of host-based therapeutics to give the host an edge in fighting the virus.
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To untangle these interactions and better understand them, we take a multiplex approach to profile the "infection microenvironment". These range from RNA-sequencing at the bulk and single cell level, high content imaging for spatial organization of 10-80 protein markers, spatial RNA sequencing, 3D tissue imaging, metabolomic profiling, and lipidomic profiling. We combine and analyze the data using open-source tools or building our own computational toolset.
Three major areas of research
