Caitlin Pepperell, MD

Bacteria, Fungi

What forces shape the evolution of human pathogens? In what ways has human evolution been influenced by infectious diseases? How does the environment affect population-level patterns of infectious disease? These are some of the broad questions we tackle by studying genetic and other types of data from humans and human pathogens. We are particularly interested in granulomatous diseases, e.g. tuberculosis and the endemic mycoses. These diseases are of major importance to global public health, and we hope that a better understanding of evolutionary interactions between humans and pathogenic microbes will lead to improvements in disease control, antimicrobial therapy and vaccines.