Prolonged overstimulation of signal transduction pathways by EPEC results in extensive intestinal damage and eventually to enterocyte death, but the bacterial functions that induce such complex processes have not yet been fully explained. Campylobacter jejuni has relatively recently been identified as a major human pathogen, causing severe inflammatory diarrhoea among children and young adults in developed countries. Symptoms resemble those of the inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, for which no aetiological agent has yet been identified. My particular interest here is the mechanism by which Campylobacter stimulates inflammation and eventual tissue damage. Salmonella species are a major cause of food-borne gastrointestinal illness in both developed and developing countries.
Vaccines are available but inefficient.
My interest is to apply well established evidence for the crucial role of iron in bacterial infections to developing a fuller understanding of iron uptake by Salmonella, and to constructing potential live oral vaccine strains attenuated in some aspect of their iron metabolism. In each case, modern molecular genetics and new techniques in cell biology are being used to analyse the nature and control of bacterial virulence factors and the host's responses to infection. KG Wooldridge, PH Williams, JM Ketley. R Reissbrodt, R Kingsley, W Rabsch, W Beer, M Roberts, PH Williams. 1997.