Infectious diseases are among the leading causes of human morbidity and mortality, with the greatest burden felt in the pediatric population. For any infectious disease, only a fraction of the exposed individuals develop clinical symptoms. These inter-indi ...
One of the major toxins secreted by H. pylori is the Vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) named after its ability to induce the formation of "vacuole"-like membrane vesicles in the cytoplasm of gastric cells. VacA has been associated with the disruption of mitoc ...
Human tuberculosis (TB) is a frequently fatal lung disease mostly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), a slow-growing intracellular pathogen. M. tb utilizes the ESX-1 secretion system, classified as type VII, to export the virulence factors needed ...
While most molecular biologists are familiar with the artificial transformation of bacteria in the context of laboratory cloning experiments, natural competence for transformation refers to a specific physiological state in which prokaryotes are able to ta ...
Global change has caused a worldwide increase in reports of Vibrio-associated diseases with ecosystem-wide impacts on humans and marine animals. In Europe, higher prevalence of human infections followed regional climatic trends with outbreaks occurring dur ...
My PhD thesis aims to obtain the structure of several bacteriophages, including so-called “jumbo” phages, using the electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) and to study the structural transformation of these viruses as they attach and infect the host cell. We a ...
Various strategies have been proposed and applied to prepare antibacterial materials able to respond to different requirements specific for antibacterial applications. Among diverse strategies the approach based on substrates modification with polymer brus ...
Despite major attempts to prevent cholera transmission, millions of people worldwide still must address this devastating disease. Cholera research has so far mainly focused on the causative agent, the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, or on disease treatment, but ...
Stable L-forms are cell wall-deficient bacteria which are able to multiply and propagate indefinitely, despite the absence of a rigid peptidoglycan cell wall. We investigated whether L-forms of the intracellular pathogen L. monocytogenes possibly retain pa ...
Bicyclic peptide ligands are promising molecules for the development of new therapeutics. They combine advantages from large protein therapeutics and small molecule drugs. Large combinatorial libraries of bicyclic peptides can be generated and screened by ...
The physiological state of competence for natural transformation allows bacteria to take up free DNA from the environment and recombine it into their genome. As one of three modes of horizontal gene transfer, natural transformation has hence contributed su ...
