Project: Application of proteomics to explore Burkholderia pathogenesis
Scott group
Multiple bacterial pathogens escape detection and removal by the host immune system by hiding within cells. Understanding how bacteria create hospitable intracellular environments is critical for developing approaches to help prevent infections in immunocompromised individuals, and advancing new therapies to purge these infections from cells. Within this project, we aim to explore new state of the art approaches to track and quantify proteomic changes at the intracellular host pathogen interface. Utilising proteomics we will characterise both the host and bacterial factors which shape pathogenesis. By gaining insight into how Burkholderia species, such as B. cenocepacia (a serious opportunistic infection of CF sufferers), survives within human cells this will provide a deeper understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of Burkholderia infections.
This project seeks to understand how Burkholderia species controls and overcomes the host defenses using state of the art proteomics approaches. This can be accomplished in a number of ways:
- Characterising the temporal and spatial changes in the host cell in response to infection using MS based approaches
- Characterising the secretome of Burkholderia mutants to understand the arsenal of proteins used to subvert the host
- Ctracking proteome changes within Burkholderia itself during growth within cells
Proteomics & Burkholderia pathogenesis
Contact project supervisor for further
information and application enquiries
Scott group
2 vacancies
The Scott group focuses on understanding microbial mediate protein glycosylation and microbial pathogenesis. Glycosylation is a post-translational modification, which allows pathogens to radically alter the function of proteins both within microbes and the host cells they infect. Within a range of pathogens such as malaria, salmonella and Burkholderia cenocepacia, protein glycosylation can be used for both defensive and offensive processes. Using mass spectrometry-based approaches, the Scott group seeks to develop methodologies to identify and track microbial glycosylation events and investigate how microbes subvert host proteomes leading to disease.
Scott group Current Projects
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Understanding the role of O-linked glycosylation within Burkholderia species
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
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Application of proteomics to explore Burkholderia pathogenesis
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
Research degrees at the Doherty Institute are administered by the University of Melbourne.