Antivirulence Strategies
Assistant Professor
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine
Our laboratory aims to study the biochemistry that governs host-microbe interactions. From a systems scale perspective, we focus on studying bacterial pathogenesis, host responses to infection, and the impact of the microbiome on health and disease. At its core, the laboratory applies multiplexing quantitative proteomics to simultaneously track thousands of protein dynamics and associated post-translational modifications in an accurate and high throughput fashion. We then interface microbiology techniques to characterize important factors identified during these interactions. When the opportunity arises, translational studies of therapeutic value are undertaken in tissue culture and murine models. This information is then used to design novel strategies for the treatment of human infectious diseases.
Education:
B.A. in Chemistry (2006) California State University, San Marcos; Ph.D. (2011) University of California, San Diego; Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Pathogenesis (2011-2014) University of California, San Diego.
Awards and Honors:
UC President’s Postdoctoral Award (2014), IRACDA UCSD Fellowship (2013), A.P. Giannini Medical Fellow (2011), AGEP Fellow (2006), Competitive-edge Predoctoral Award (2006), UCSD STARS Program (2005).
Leadership Experience:
Yale Bouchet Honor Society Inductee for excellent research and commitment to diversity and equality (2010).
- Development of mass spectrometry tools to study specialized molecules of bacterial pathogenesis and host responses.
- Elucidated mechanisms used by multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus to clear host microbiome.
- Yamanaka K et al (2014). Direct cloning and refactoring of a silent lipopeptide biosynthetic gene cluster yields the antibiotic taromycin A. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111:1957-62.
- Gonzalez et al. (2014) N-Terminal ArgD Peptides from the Classical Staphylococcus aureus Agr System Have Cytotoxic and Proinflammatory Activities. Chem Biol 21:1457-62.
- Lapek et al. (2017) Biomimetic Virulomics for Capture and Identification of Cell-Type Specific Effector Proteins. ACS nano 11:11831-11838.
- Markmiller et al. (2018). Context-Dependent and Disease-Specific Diversity in Protein Interactions within Stress Granules. Cell. 172(3):590-604.
- Lapek & Mills et al. Defining Host Responses during Systemic Bacterial Infection through Construction of a Murine Organ Proteome Atlas. Cell systems. 6(5):579-592.
- Singh et al. (2018). Dysregulated Microbial Fermentation of Soluble Fiber Induces Cholestatic Liver Cancer. Cell. 175(3):679-694.
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Multiplexed quantitative proteomics, metabolomics, and posttranslational modification characterization.
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Targeting virulence mechanisms and host responses as therapeutic targets in leading bacterial pathogens.
- Specialized proteomics tools for the analysis of fecal and tissue samples associated with the human microbiome.