The broad theme of my laboratory is innate immune cell recognition of pathogen or "danger" molecules, the responses generated, and their role in pathology. In the past I have been particularly interested in responses of cells to foreign nucleic acids. This started with our early publication of macrophage activation by extracellular bacterial DNA, now known to be mediated by Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9). On the other hand, DNA in the cytosol of cells is detected as abnormal, and we found this caused macrophage death. Subsequently, we were one of the groups describing the AIM2 inflammasome, a large protein complex that mediates DNA-dependent cell death and inflammation.
We currently focus on Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) which is the receptor for bacterial LPS, inflammasome responses, novel responses to cytosolic DNA, as well as inflammatory processes in dengue virus pathology. In-depth understanding of these processes will provide new directions for drug development.