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Research Bench Lab
Microbiology & Immunology
Jessica Kelliher, PhD

Jessica Kelliher, PhD

Assistant Professor

Locations

  • Microbiology & Immunology
  • BSB B2215 (office)

Contact Information

General Interests

Host-pathogen interactions, cell-autonomous immunity, bacterial pathogenesis, bacterial genetics and physiology, bacterial signal transduction

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Medical Microbiology & Immunology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
PhD, Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019
Learn more about the Kelliher Lab

Research Interests

In the Kelliher lab, we are broadly interested in investigating host-pathogen interactions at the molecular level, with the goal of developing better therapeutics for treating bacterial infections. More specifically, we are interested in understanding host and pathogen factors that drive infection outcomes in the mammalian cytosol, a relatively under-studied host-pathogen interface. While some pathogens have evolved to reach and replicate in the cytosol, non-adapted microbes are killed through largely unknown cell-autonomous defenses. We investigate both the cytosolic defenses that target microbes in this environment, as well as the adaptations that professional cytosolic pathogens possess that enable them to survive and thrive in this restrictive niche.

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