Publications related to Conditions for transient epidemics of waterborne disease in spatially explicit systems

Single-cell analysis of the interactions between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and macrophages

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis is a highly effective pathogen infecting nearly a third of the world's population. An M. tuberculosis infection starts when droplets containing bacteria enter an individual's lungs. The first host cells to contact the bacteria ar ...

EPFL2024

Microfluidic systems for infectious disease diagnostics

Thomas Lehnert, Martinus Gijs

Microorganisms, encompassing both uni- and multicellular entities, exhibit remarkable diversity as omnipresent life forms in nature. They play a pivotal role by supplying essential components for sustaining biological processes across diverse ecosystems, i ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Accessible and highly observable gastrointestinal organoid model systems for studying host-pathogen interactions

Moritz Hofer

Traditional cell cultures have long been fundamental to biological research, offering an alternative to animal models burdened by ethical constraints and procedural intricacies, often lacking relevance to human physiology and disease. Moreover, their inabi ...

EPFL2024

Host-Pathogen Interactions Through the Genomic Lens

Zhi Ming Xu

Hosts and pathogens are involved in a long-standing evolutionary arms race characterized by successive rounds of evolution. Specifically, while hosts evolve resistance against infections, pathogens adapt to re-establish virulence. Since the signatures of t ...

EPFL2023

Stay close, but not too close: aerial image analysis reveals patterns of social distancing in seal colonies

Devis Tuia, Benjamin Alexander Kellenberger

Many species aggregate in dense colonies. Species-specific spatial patterns provide clues about how colonies are shaped by various (a)biotic factors, including predation, temperature regulation or disease transmission. Using aerial imagery, we examined the ...

2023

Viral Genetic Determinants of Prolonged Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection Among Infants in a Healthy Term Birth Cohort

Thomas Junier, Jacques Fellay, Dylan Lawless, Zhi Ming Xu

Background. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is associated with acute respiratory infection. We sought to identify RSV variants associated with prolonged infection. ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC2023

Cecropins contribute to Drosophila host defense against a subset of fungal and Gram-negative bacterial infection

Bruno Lemaitre, Alexia Laurie Carboni, Mark Austin Hanson

Cecropins are small helical secreted peptides with antimicrobial activity that are widely distributed among insects. Genes encoding Cecropins are strongly induced upon infection, pointing to their role in host defense. In Drosophila, four cecropin genes cl ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC2022

Epidemicity of cholera spread and the fate of infection control measures

Andrea Rinaldo, Lorenzo Mari, Joseph Chadi Benoit Lemaitre, Marino Gatto, Damiano Pasetto, Cristiano Trevisin

The fate of ongoing infectious disease outbreaks is predicted through reproduction numbers, defining the long-term establishment of the infection, and epidemicity indices, tackling the reactivity of the infectious pool to new contagions. Prognostic metrics ...

2022

Invasive Streptococcal Infection Can Lead to the Generation of Cross-Strain Opsonic Antibodies

Hamed Khakzad

The bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes is a common cause of both mild and severe human diseases resulting in substantial morbidity and mortality each year. No vaccines are available, and our understanding of the antibody response to this human pathogen is st ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022

Waterborne virus transport and the associated risks in a large lake

Tamar Kohn, Timothy R. Julian, Chaojie Li, Xavier Fernandez Cassi

Waterborne enteric viruses in lakes, especially at recreational water sites, may have a negative impact on human health. However, their fate and transport in lakes are poorly understood. In this study, we propose a coupled water quality and quantitative mi ...

2022

The combined impact of persistent infections and human genetic variation on C-reactive protein levels

Jacques Fellay, Flavia Aurelia Shoko Hodel, Olivier Noël Marie Naret, Clara Bonnet

Multiple human pathogens establish chronic, sometimes life-long infections. Even if they are often latent, these infections can trigger some degree of local or systemic immune response, resulting in chronic low-grade inflammation. There remains an incomple ...

BMC2022

Preexisting Heterogeneity of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Expression Drives Differential Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Macrophages

John McKinney, Ophélie Rutschmann, Chiara Toniolo

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is initiated by the inhalation and implantation of bacteria in the lung alveoli, where they are phagocytosed by macrophages. Even a single bacterium may be sufficient to initiate infection. Thereafter, the clinical outc ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022

In vitro synergistic action of TAT-RasGAP 317-326 peptide with antibiotics against Gram-negative pathogens

Grazia Vizzarro

Objectives: Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria are a continuously increasing threat for medicine, caus-ing infections recalcitrant to antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) were identified as alternatives to antibiotics, being naturally occurring short ...

2022

A Phylogeny-aware GWAS Framework to Correct for Heritable Pathogen Effects on Infectious Disease Traits

Jacques Fellay, Christian Axel Wandall Thorball

Infectious diseases are particularly challenging for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) because genetic effects from two organisms (pathogen and host) can influence a trait. Traditional GWAS assume individual samples are independent observations. Howev ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2022

A systematic CRISPR approach to understanding the role of Drosophila antimicrobial peptides in immunity in vivo

Mark Austin Hanson

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are host-encoded antibiotics that combat invading microbes. These short immune effectors are conserved in plants, animals, and fungi. Early work showed that AMPs killed bacteria in generalist fashions in vitro: i.e. AMPs that ...

EPFL2022

Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mechanosensing through label-free imaging of type IV pili

Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà

Bacteria are ubiquitously found in all sorts of environment. They're found in the ocean, soil, or even in our guts or on our skin. Independently of their niche, they can transition from a planktonic state were they freely swim in an aqueous environment to ...

EPFL2022

An In Vivo Microfluidic Study of Bacterial Load Dynamics and Absorption in the C. elegans Intestine

Thomas Lehnert, Martinus Gijs, Vittorio Viri, Maël Arveiler

Caenorhabditiselegans (C. elegans) has gained importance as a model for studying host-microbiota interactions and bacterial infections related to human pathogens. Assessing the fate of ingested bacteria in the worm's intestine is therefore of great interes ...

MDPI2021

Modeling infectious disease dynamics towards informed public health interventions, with applications on COVID-19 and cholera

Joseph Chadi Benoit Lemaitre

Emerging and existing infectious diseases pose a constant threat to individuals and communities across the world. In many cases, the burden of these diseases is preventable through public health interventions. However, taking the right decisions and design ...

EPFL2021

Microtissue models for studying the dynamics of host-pathogen interactions in the urinary bladder

Kunal Sharma

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are amongst the most common bacterial infections and are the second-most frequent reason for antibiotic prescriptions. Moreover, in about 25% of all treated cases, recurrence of infection occurs. Uropathogenic Escherichia co ...

EPFL2021

Community seed network in an era of climate change: dynamics of maize diversity in Yucatán, Mexico

Marianna Fenzi

Local seed systems remain the fundamental source of seeds for many crops in developing countries. Climate resilience for small holder farmers continues to depend largely on locally available seeds of traditional crop varieties. High rainfall events can hav ...

2022