Monday, March 27, at 12:10 p.m. in CUE 419
The Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering are hosting a seminar presented by Dr. Tom Kawula, Professor and Director of the Paul G. Allen School of Global Animal Health.
Tom Kawula is Professor and Director of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health. He received BS and MS degrees in Bacteriology and Biochemistry from the University of Idaho and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Following Post-Doctoral training at North Carolina State University he joined the Microbiology and Immunology department at Cornell University. In 1992 he returned to the University of North Carolina leading research on microbial pathogenesis until 2016 when he moved to Allen School at Washington State University.
Microbial Pathogen Strategies for Usurping Host Defenses
Infections that are the most recalcitrant to control by vaccination and to treatment with antimicrobial therapy are caused by pathogens that survive and thrive inside host immune cells. The intracellular environment is nutrient poor, and actively hostile to microbes. Successful intracellular pathogens, therefore, have evolved effective strategies for extracting essential nutrients to support growth, and to evade host immune responses. Francisella tularensis is one of the most virulent pathogens known, capable of causing fatal disease in humans and other animals following contact with a single bacterial cell. We use F. tularensis as a model to study successful pathogen properties. In this seminar we will discuss intracellular pathogen survival mechanisms, as well as mechanisms by which intracellular pathogens can move from host cell to cell while evading detection by the host immune system.
