Infections with intracellular pathogens remain a major human health burden. Although programmed host cell death is thought to play an important role in controlling these pathogens, defects in individual pathways of programmed cell death (i.e. pyroptosis, necroptosis, apoptosis) often only cause minor defects in the control of such infections. This is likely related to redundancy that evolved in response to pathogen evasion strategies, which allows the host to compensate for evasion of one pathway through the activation of another. Sammy's group is currently investigating the organisation, regulation and utilization of this system of redundancy in cell death pathways.
Public Health
