Our Research

In the mid 1990's, a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, was linked to stomach cancer, the fourth leading cancer killer worldwide. H. pylori establishes lifelong infection in the stomach of half the human population world-wide. The consequences of this infection range from undetected gastritis (inflammation of the stomach) to ulcer disease and gastric cancer. Our lab is interested in the mechanisms by which this bacterium can establish and maintain a chronic infection in the stomach and the molecular cross-talk between the host and the bacterium during the decades-long infection that can lead to disease.