Immunology and Cell Biology

Microbial and systems biology

Microbial immunology is the study of the molecular mechanisms used by microbes to cause disease in humans and animals. Bacterial, protozoan, fungal and viral pathogens have developed a wide variety of tools to establish themselves in the host and gain nutrients, which also cause impairment and disease. To understand the complex processes used by microbial pathogens, microbiologists and immunologists employ all the tools of modern molecular biology, genetics, virulence factors, drug interactions, biochemistry and biophysics. Understanding how microbes cause disease is often the first step toward the development of new vaccines and therapeutics and its cover all aspects of the interrelationship between infectious agents and their hosts.