Member Profile

Our laboratory studies the interaction between the host and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB). Our goals are to characterize the lung immune response to Mtb, decipher the mechanisms by which Mtb evades host defense to enter a latent state and later reactivates, and develop effective anti-tuberculous interventions including vaccines. Current work in our lab seeks to: i) understand how B cells and humoral immunity shapes the host response to Mtb, with a focus on characterizing the mechanisms by which IgM and the germinal center reaction regulate the development of anti-TB immunity; ii) test the hypothesis that Mtb can exploit the host immunosuppressive tryptophan catabolic pathway initiated by the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase to evade anti-tuberculous immunity, thereby promoting persistence; iii) elucidate how the Mtb universal stress protein Rv2623 interacts with the putative transporter of cell wall intermediates Rv1747 to modulate the level of expression of cell envelope phosphatidyl-myo-inositol-mannosides, which, by virtue of their immunoregulatory properties, affect host-bacterium interaction to influence in vivo mycobacterial growth, including in the context of latency and reactivation.