Welcome

Our lab studies how pathogens evolve and spread. We use experimental and computational tools to test our hypotheses, and collaborate with clinical and public health institutions. We focus on questions of antibiotic resistance, within-host evolution and between-host transmission, and pathogen response to host immune pressures. Our overall aim is to improve diagnostics, therapeutics, and clinical and public health strategies to aid in the control of infectious diseases.

Updates from the Lab

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August 2024: The lab has many exciting new manuscripts to share!

A new manuscript published in Lancet Infectious Diseases led by Kirstin Oliveira Roster with coauthors Rachel Mittelstaedt, Jordan Reyes, and Aishani Aatresh finds that molecular surveillance of N. gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) remnants is the best way to quickly detect changes in the prevalence of doxycycline resistance following rollout of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis. Great work, Kirstin and coauthors!

Congratulations also to Kirstin on her manuscript Surveillance strategies for the detection of new SARS-CoV-2 variants across epidemiological contexts which has been accepted to PLOS Computational Biology!

A new manuscript published in Lancet Infectious Diseases led by Mui Pham analyzes long-term trends in infection incidence and antimicrobial resistance for 9 pathogens over 15 years using data from the US Veterans Affairs. Congratulations, Mui!

Emily Reichert’s manuscript on Resistance and prevalence implications of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis for gonorrhea prevention in men who have sex with men: a modeling study has now been accepted to Lancet Microbe. Congratulations, Emily!

A new preprint from Adi Bandekar dissects the mechanism of cell division in N. gonorrhoeae! Great work, Adi!

A new preprint from Rachel Mittelstaedt analyzes trends of tetracycline resistance and co-resistance in a study population that is eligible for doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis. Congratulations, Rachel!

Luca Bielski and Eva Gorenburg joined us this summer for undergraduate research! Luca worked on characterizing resistance to novel antibiotics in N. gonorrhoeae and Eva did a literature search of mathematical modeling gonorrhea transmission in low and middle income countries. Thanks for your awesome work this summer and we will miss you!

It is bittersweet to say goodbye to Rebecca, Aishani, and Caitlin. Rebecca will be starting her PhD studies at Emory University in the fall, Aishani will be starting a Master’s program through her Rhodes Scholarship (!) at Oxford, and Caitlin will be working in the private sector. Congratulations on your next steps, thank you for all that you’ve done in the lab, and we will miss you!

We officially welcomed Eric Neubauer Vickers as a PhD student in the lab at the beginning of the summer! We are so excited to work with you and learn from you!

Read all the Lab Updates