Ralph Isberg, Ph.D.

Our research is directed toward answering three questions concerning the lifestyle of invasive bacterial pathogens: How are intracellular pathogens able to penetrate into normally nonphagocytic epithelial cells? What factors do intracellular bacteria encode that allow them to survive and grow within the normally hostile environment of macrophages? What role do factors that are important for bacterial-host cell interaction models play in an infection of the host? We perform genetic and biochemical experiments on two bacterial pathogens, the bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, and Legionella pneumophila, the causative agent of Legionnaire's disease pneumonia.