Infectious Disease

Center for Molecular and Translational Human Infectious Diseases Research

Welcome to the Center for Molecular and Translational Human Infectious Diseases Research. Infectious diseases transcend all areas of human biology and medicine, and despite significant advances, they continue to extract a tremendous toll on human morbidity and mortality. Investigators in the Center are interested in many areas of contemporary infectious disease research, including molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis, human genetics of susceptibility to infectious agents, and vaccinology. We are interested in a diverse range of pathogens and the diseases they cause, including but not limited to group A Streptococcus, group B Streptococcus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, and Vibrio cholerae.

Our interdisciplinary research is performed in newly-renovated state-of-the-art facilities using genome-wide methods and high throughput technologies. Research Institute facilities include a biosafety level 3 laboratory, Affymetrix expression microarray stations, confocal microscopy, ABI sequencing capacity, outstanding imaging capacity, and Illumina, Solexa, and Luminex instruments, among many others.

Houston and the Texas Medical Center have an outstanding microbial pathogenesis and infectious disease research community that includes investigators at many institutions, including the University of Houston, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Texas A&M Institute of Biotechnology, Rice University, and Baylor College of Medicine.