A. Karen Brassinga, PhD
Professor

Welcome to the Brassinga Lab

 

Our laboratory research is focused on studying Legionella pneumophila, the causative agent of Legionnaires’ Disease.

 

It is proposed that cyst-like forms, either free-form or within amoebae vesicles, when aerosolized in water droplets and inadvertently inhaled by susceptible individuals, infect alveolar macrophages, ultimately manifesting as an atypical pneumonia termed legionellosis or Legionnaires’ disease.

 

Individuals at high risk of contracting the disease are very often immunocompromised such as the elderly or transplant/cancer patients, whereas healthy individuals are at low risk.

 

We are interested in uncovering the molecular mechanisms that control the differentiation of replicating bacteria into cyst-like forms by studying the global regulatory cascade that controls the developmental cell-cycle program.

 

Studying L. pneumophila in the C. elegans host model presents another approach in the investigation as to how L. pneumophila successfully infects human macrophages.