Bellaire Research Projects

 

Mission Statement

Working towards eliminating persistent infections through basic pathogenesis research and development of bioinspired nanotherapeutics.

Current Research Projects

Brucella abortus (green) in THP-1 cells stained for acidic vesicles (red).
 
 
 
 
 
 Intracellular Residence of Brucella spp. in interferon-γ activated monocytes.
Our lab has been developing and optimizing tools to study the intracellular niche of Brucella and cellular responses elicited from cells of the innate immune system.
 
polySA (green)_48hr p.i._WGA (red)
Polyanhydride nanosphere interactions with chronic bacterial pathogens and parasitic diseases.

Our lab has undertaken a collaborative project with Dr. Balaji Narisimhan to examine the cellular distribution of polyanhydride nanospheres used to formulate improved subunit vaccines for delivery to humans and animals. We demonstrated that such particles are delivered to organized, intracellular structures that are diverse in their cellular function. We are currently working towards understanding the relative contribution each of these varied intracellular compartments makes towards the unique and highly desirable adjuvanticity characteristics of the polyanhydrides copolymers.