Danielle Malo

The laboratory of Danielle Malo (Departments of Medicine, Human Genetics) works on the identification and characterization of genes involved in the host immune response to pathogenic Salmonella using mouse models of the disease and forward functional genetics.  Salmonella infections in humans cause diseases (typhoid fever, salmonellosis and invasive non-typhoidal salmonellosis) that are an increasingly important public health issue both in developed and developing countries.  The lab is using different models of infection (typhoid-like, chronic carriage and typhlocolitis) and genetic approaches (positional cloning of Mendelian and complex phenotypes and chemical mutagenesis) to study the complex mechanisms underlying the host response to Salmonella infection.  Different pathophysiological and immunological aspects of Salmonella infections are being studied including recognition of Salmonella by phagocytic cells, bacterial killing mechanisms, cell recruitment at the site of infection and the pathogenesis of Salmonella-induced anemia.