The EPIC faculty is a team of dedicated researchers with interests that range from understanding mechanisms of drug resistance in fungal pathogens to fatty acid metabolism in kinetoplastid parasites. We are united in our focus on some of the world’s most troubling and neglected disease-causing organisms.

Christopher Chouinard
Chemistry
Our research interests include improving analytical sensitivity and selectivity by improving ionization efficiency through targeted chemical reactions, seprarations through high-resolution ion mobility spectrometry, and spatial localization with mass spectrometry imaging.

Sourabh Dhingra
Biological Sciences
The overarching goal of the Dhingra lab is to understand the molecular mechanisms associated with pathogenesis and azole drug tolerance in invasive pulmonary aspergillosis. We use molecular, biochemical and cellular approaches as well as murine models to understand the role of ncRNAs in pathobiology and azole drug tolerance of Aspergillus fumigatus.

Stephen Dolan
Genetics and Biochemistry
I study microbial interactions in human infections, specifically complex communities formed by multiple species, resulting in polymicrobial infections. My primary research focus is on respiratory infections in individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF), where the abnormal mucus makes them susceptible to various bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens. Instead of studying a single model organism, I intentionally pursued broad training on multiple co-infecting human pathogens (notably Aspergillus and Pseudomonas). This comprehensive, multisystem approach allows us to unravel the intricate mechanisms of communication between microbes during infection.
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Zhicheng Dou
Biological Sciences
My research focuses on proteolytic mechanisms during infection by the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii.
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Manuel Fierro
Our lab is interested in studying the biology of Plasmodium to identify novel points of attack that can lead to novel antimalarial or vaccine development. We use a wide range of functional and reverse genetic approaches and employ novel molecular tool development to understand the host-pathogen interactions present during blood-stage infection of Plasmodium falciparum by characterizing the essential process of host-cell remodeling.

Cheryl Ingram-Smith
Genetics and Biochemistry
The interests of the lab include the transcriptional, proteomic, and metabolic changes that occur during encystation and excystation in Entamoeba histolytica.

Andrew Jezewski
Genetics and Biochemistry
Identifying and characterizing the virulence required mechanisms of Cryptococcus neoformans.

Lukasz Kozubowski
Genetics and Biochemistry
We study a human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans to understand the mechanistic cellular processes used by pathogenic microorganisms to allow survival in the infected host.
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Jessica Larsen
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
We develop nanoparticle tools that respond to pathologic stimuli to deliver drugs across biologic nervous system barriers including the blood-brain barrier and the blood-nerve barrier.

James Lewis
My research goal is to understand how populations adapt to novel selection pressures, focusing on: 1) What are the molecular mechanisms and changes that produce novel adaptive phenotypes?, 2) How do these mechanisms evolve?, and 3) How does adaptive change dictate subsequent evolution within and between populations?

Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte
Mechanical Engineering
Our group researches the effect of electric fields on different organisms towards optimizing their lysis, separation, enrichment, and detection in automated sample preparation and point of use diagnostics devices. Our current emphasis is the study of Candida cells. Keywords include microfluidics, dielectrophoresis, microelectrodes, and lab-on-a-chip.
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Meredith Morris
Genetics and Biochemistry
In the search for new therapeutics, we investigate essential parasite-specific processes, believing that understanding these processes will enable us to specifically target the parasite during treatments while leaving the host relatively unaffected.
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James Morris
Genetics and Biochemistry
James Morris is a founding member of EPIC.  His work focuses on resolving how protozoan parasites sense and metabolize the important sugar glucose during infection of their human host.  While his first love is the African trypanosome, he has recently initiated studies on the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri, a parasite that can be found in the pond that abuts his neighborhood.

Kim Paul
Genetics and Biochemistry
My group is interested in the regulation of fatty acid metabolism in the African trypanosome.
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Emily Rosowski
Biological Sciences
My lab focuses on understanding host-pathogen interactions, using the larval zebrafish as a model host. We are currently studying how innate immune mechanisms control infections with the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus.

Anna Seekatz
Biological Sciences
My lab focuses on host-pathogen interactions in intestinal worms.

Michael Sehorn
Genetics and Biochemistry
My laboratory strives to understand the mechanism of homology-directed repair of DNA double-strand breaks mediated by RAD51 and DMC1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Entamoeba histolytica and humans.
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Kerry Smith – EPIC Director
Genetics and Biochemistry
My group is interested in the acetate metabolism in the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus.
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Alexis Stamatikos
Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences
Exploring the role of TLR-mediated immune responses in kinetoplastid parasite infections.

Lesly Temesvari
Biological Sciences
We seek to understand the virulence functions of secretion, phagocytosis and parasite-host interactions in Entamoeba histolytica.
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Daniel Whitehead
Chemistry
EPIC-related projects in the Whitehead lab focus on the synthesis of small molecules and conjugates for the development of therapeutic and drug delivery strategies for treating eukaryotic pathogen infections.
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