Rajendar Deora
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Whooping cough, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, is rising again in the United States and elsewhere despite high vaccination rates. Today's acellular vaccines give incomplete, short-lived protection and do not stop the bacterium from settling in the nose.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
- Topics
Bordetella pertussis
whooping cough
nasal colonization
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Determine how Bordetella pertussis attaches to, colonizes and forms biofilms on primary human nasal epithelial cultures grown at an air-liquid interface with mucus and beating cilia.
- Test which known B. pertussis virulence factors, the bacterial proteins that promote infection, are required for infection of human nasal epithelial cells.
- Characterize how infection alters the cellular and morphological properties of the nasal epithelium, including mucus production and ciliated cells.
- Map simultaneous gene expression changes in both bacterium and host cells during nasal infection using high-throughput dual RNA sequencing.
More about the research
Vaccinated people can therefore carry and pass it on with mild or no symptoms, so many cases go unreported and these carriers act as a reservoir for spread. B. pertussis infects only humans and has no animal or environmental reservoir, so studying it requires models that mimic the human airway. Most earlier work focused on the lower airway and on animal models, leaving the question of how the bacterium persists in the human nose largely open.
Why it matters
Because people with nasal carriage of Bordetella pertussis spread whooping cough and fuel outbreaks, understanding how the bacterium survives in the human nose matters for control of the disease. The bacterial attachment, biofilm and gene-expression pathways identified here could provide targets for next-generation pertussis vaccines that block colonization and transmission, rather than only reducing symptoms.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Robert Lee
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Physiology
Map how T2R bitter taste receptors in human nasal ciliated cells signal to eNOS, the enzyme that makes nitric oxide, using imaging and biochemistry in primary cells grown at an air-liquid interface.
Leigh Knodler
University of Vermont, VT·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine whether nine genes in the 40-kilobase type III secretion gene cluster on the Providencia alcalifaciens plasmid drive invasion of host cells, combining computational prediction, in vitro biochemistry and infection of cultured non-phagocytic cells.
Stefan Worgall
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Measure sphingolipid production in children with asthma during and after rhinovirus-triggered asthma attacks, using sphingolipid levels in nasal fluid and blood and gene activity in nasal cells.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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