Molecular and physical mechanisms of infection
Most familiar interventions against infectious disease act at the molecular scale, such as drugs and vaccines. This molecular view has shaped much of modern medicine.
But infection is also a physical process. Tuberculosis bacteria must reach the lung and survive the forces inside it. Schistosome parasites must swim through water, find a human host, and burrow through skin. At each step, motion, flow, adhesion, and mechanics decide whether the pathogen succeeds.
We study these physical mechanisms with the aim of finding overlooked bottlenecks: points where an infection could be disrupted by acting on how pathogens move and interact, not only on what they are made of.
How we study the physics of infection
Our approach combines engineering, quantitative measurement, and biological questions.
We engineer in-vivo-mimetic systems, such as organs-on-a-chip, microfluidic devices, and tissue-like environments, that recreate selected features of infection in the lab. These systems let us isolate physical parameters that are difficult to control in a living host.
Within them, we measure and model biophysical behaviors using microscopy, force measurements, theory, and simulation, quantifying how pathogens move, adhere, organize, and interact with their surroundings.
From these experiments, we work to discover the physical mechanisms that shape infection: how pathogens navigate toward hosts, travel within the body, form collective structures, and cross physical barriers.
Our longer-term hope is to translate these insights into new interventions that complement existing drugs and vaccines by targeting the physical steps of disease
Hannebelle lab 