Research Highlights: Infectious Disease

Research Highlights:
Infectious Disease

Researchers at the ӳ��ý are applying cutting-edge technologies to try to solve the global health threats posed by infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, Ebola, and Zika. Experts from a variety of fields — biologists, bioengineers, chemists, computational biologists, geneticists, software engineers, and medical clinicians — work together in a collaborative environment to study the biology of hosts, pathogens, and disease-carrying vectors, combining scientific approaches from the fields of genomics, synthetic biology, and systems biology.

The goal is to understand, mitigate, and ultimately eradicate these diseases, which collectively impact hundreds of millions of people every year.

ӳ��ý Press releases and news stories

Getting smart about antibiotics
ӳ��ý institute member James Collins demystifies how antibiotics work, laying a path toward smarter, more effective use of existing bacteria-fighting drugs

Resisting resistance in TB
Antibiotics do patients no good if the pathogen being targeted is resistant to them. When it comes to tuberculosis, avoiding treatments destined to fail can be lifesaving.

Single-cell analysis helps sort out host-pathogen interactions
Researchers apply single-cell analysis to study host-pathogen interactions

New insights on an old virus
ӳ��ý researchers publish the largest catalog of genomic data on Lassa virus to date, lending new understanding to the deadly disease

Genomic study sheds light on protective effects of malaria vaccine candidate
Evidence of allele-specificity helps explain partial protection of RTS,S/AS01

External Content

CNN

A family of superbugs, known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or CRE, may be spreading more widely than previously thought, according to a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wall Street Journal

Study examined bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a class of antibiotics considered last-resort

TIME,
Pardis Sabeti was one of the scientists recognized for their work investigating the Ebola virus during the recent outbreak

New York Times
ӳ��ý scientists are sifting through Ebola virus genomes, looking for clues about the virus and how we might stop it

Genome Web
Genome sequencing is providing clues about the evolution of the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax and how it develops drug resistance

New York Times
Research is bolstering the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ suggesting that a healthy immune system may depend in part on early exposure to certain microbes

Nature
ӳ��ý researchers make a case for data sharing during outbreaks to speed global response

Videos and Multimedia

How a photo from the Congo inspired a feature image for the journal Science

Midsummer Nights' Science
Dan Neafsey describes how genome sequencing provides a new perspective on malaria, a disease that has been shaped by natural selection of both the malaria parasite and its human host

Science for All Seasons
Renowned gastroenterologist Ramnik Xavier discussed the link between the gut microbiome and our health