Academic Background

1995: PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from UCLA School of Medicine

1996: Damon Runyon-Winchell postdoctoral fellowship, Harvard Medical School, www.damonrunyon.org

1999: Instructor in Microbiology, Harvard Medical School

1999: Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan Medical School

2000: Dade Microscan Young Investigator Award, http://newsarchive.asm.org/feb01/news.asp

2003: Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UMASS Medical School

Biology and pathogenicity of Haemophilus influenzae

Research in the Akerley lab focuses on the biology and pathogenicity of Haemophilus influenzae, a bacterium that colonizes humans and leads to disease by spreading from the nasopharyngeal mucosal epithelium to other sites in the body.  Depending on a complex interplay between the host and the infectious strain, H. influenzae invades the bloodstream, spreads to the middle ear, infects the lungs, or colonizes the nasopharynx persistently without producing symptoms. The transition between asymptomatic colonization and disease involves a change in the balance between bacterial virulence mechanisms and host defenses. Understanding how this balance is maintained and disrupted will require a comprehensive understanding of H. influenzae biology within the host, its only known growth environment in nature.

Since the complete DNA sequences of the genomes of H. influenzae and those of many other bacteria have been determined, powerful genome-scale approaches to microbiology have become available. Our work incorporates these current methodologies and we have also devised several new genome-based approaches for our studies of H. influenzae. We are currently applying these approaches to other bacterial pathogens. We expect that insights obtained and technology developed in our studies of H. influenzae will enhance understanding of diverse bacterial pathogens.