Current areas of special interest include:

• Studies of virulence gene regulation in bacterial pathogens such as  Listeria monocytogenes, Corynebacterium dyphteriae and Enterococcus faecalis,
• Research on secreted bacterial virulence factors of Chlamydia spp.,
• Biofilm research including host-pathogen studies of Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Clostridium difficile, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis biofilms for vaccine development and improved diagnostics, and
• Research on lipopolysaccharide structure and modification in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and others potential agents of biowarfare and emerging diseases.

Other developing interests are:

• Early childhood caries, opportunistic infections affecting immuno-deficient patients
• cancrum oris (noma)
• Endodontic/systemic infections

Approaches include genomic and post-genomic collaborative projects with scientists of the Institute for Genome Science, molecular and cell biology studies, biomathematical and animal modeling approaches and the state-of-the-art imaging methodologies.