Pathogen Populations - Introduction
Investigating how organisms adapt to hosts and ever-changing environments
Our knowledge of pathogen biology, their evolution and the communities they form is crucial to understanding how organisms cause disease, trace the origin of disease outbreaks and discover novel therapeutics to cure and prevent infection.
Our knowledge of pathogens, their evolution and the communities they form is crucial to understanding how organisms cause disease, where outbreaks start and to develop new medicines.
At the forefront of this field, IGS researchers are studying the traits that make organisms unique, investigating variations in species, and explaining how those differences impact their function.
This research is important to medicine, epidemiology and microbial forensics. By detailing the structure of microbial populations and analyzing differences among isolates of a single species, IGS scientists have discovered unique features - helping pinpoint the origins of disease outbreaks and explaining why some pathogens are deadlier than others of the same species.
Finding features that are unique to disease-causing microbes can help improve the diagnosis of diseases and offer new targets for drugs and vaccines. In their studies of population and evolutionary genomics, IGS scientists are examining a wide range of organisms, from tiny viruses that cause the common cold to bacteria and parasites that cause diarrheal diseases, gross deformities, and death.
Our knowledge of pathogens, their evolution and the communities they form is crucial to understanding how organisms cause disease, where outbreaks start and to develop new medicines.
Examples of IGS studies in population and evolutionary genomics include such high profile studies as the Anthrax letters in 2001, the E. coli outbreak in spinach of 2006, and the 2011 outbreaks of cholera in Haiti and E. coli in Germany. Current research includes the use of comparative genomics to understand the biology and identify the genetic basis of virulence in Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterial agent of Lyme disease (C. Fraser’s and E. Mongodin's research), and to study commensal and pathogenic Escherichia coli and human-transmitted and zoonotic non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica, agents of severe diarrhea in humans (D. Rasko's research).
Current genomics studies of eukaryotic parasites at IGS aim to improve our understanding of the biology of these pathogens, and lead to better detection tools (D. Serre’s Research), a deeper understanding of drug resistance and vaccine efficacy (J. Carneiro da Silva's research), and the discovery of novel drug targets (J. Dunning Hotopp’s and D. Serre’s research programs).
IGS research also focuses on non-pathogenic bacteria, that are beneficial or non-harmful. For example, the bacterium Wolbachia is such an intimate part of its hosts - arthropods and roundworms - that parts of its genome are also in the host's genome (J. Dunning Hotopp’s research).