Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Shigella is the leading cause of diarrhea worldwide. We are investigating the molecular mechanisms by which the intracellular pathogen Shigella causes disease, focusing on the mechanisms by which pathogen and host factors modulate the disease process at the molecular level. The student will have ownership of an aspect of a larger project that is driven by a senior graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The student will design their own experiments, perform the experiments, interpret the results, and use the findings to design the next steps of the project, with input from the graduate student / postdoc supervisor as needed. The student will present their results periodically at group work-in-progress meetings. The student will discuss their findings and plans with Dr. Goldberg on a weekly basis.

We investigate the molecular mechanisms by which bacterial pathogens infect humans and the mechanisms of the innate immune response to these pathogens. Many bacterial pathogens alter human cells by delivering into these cells bacterial virulence proteins; we investigate how this delivery system functions and how these virulence proteins alter human cells. In addition, we discovered an innate immune protein required for detecting bacterial lipopolysaccharide in human macrophages and are investigating how this protein functions in this pathway. The student project would focus on an aspect of these investigations. The student would have the opportunity to develop a testable hypothesis and to perform the experiments to test this hypothesis.