Joy Sturtevant, PhD

Pathogens have evolved to thwart our immune response and/or 'peacefully' reside within our body. How do they  do  this? Our  laboratory  focused  on  the  initial  interactions  between  pathogen  and  host,  and  the intracellular  signaling  events  that  dictate  a  response  in  either  host  or  pathogen. Most of our research dealt with the most common opportunistic fungal pathogen,  Candida albicans. Molecular  genetic,  proteomic,  cell  culture  and  cell  biology  techniques  were  used  to  answer  these questions. Our rationale was if we can  advance our knowledge  of how  pathogens  adapt  and  survive  in  the  host; this  will  assist  in  the  identification  of  new  antimicrobial strategies. While I still believe this, my work now has shifted to academia and curriculum development in the education of both graduate and medical students.