Wai-Leung Ng

Research/Areas of Interest

One of the most fundamental questions in microbiology is to understand how bacteria sense, respond, and adapt to different environments. The bacterium that causes the diarrheal disease cholera, Vibrio cholerae, is a highly adaptive pathogen. It forms biofilm to survive in the aquatic environment, produces virulence factors to colonize the human small intestine, develop natural competence to take up exogenous DNA, and employs Type VI secretion to compete with other bacterial species. Our lab uses a multidisciplinary approach to study the signal transduction pathways that control these essential processes during the life cycle of this pathogen. We hope to harness our findings to develop novel therapeutics to combat this devastating disease.