The Mooney lab investigates how infection, inflammation, and environment intersect to shape health and disease. We study how pathogens breach and disrupt mucosal barriers, how the immune system responds, or fails to respond, during co-infection, and how changing conditions influence the spread of infectious agents.
From malaria and bacterial invasion to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in urban waterways, our work connects molecular mechanisms to current public health challenges. Using approaches spanning immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, and environmental science, we aim to uncover the shared principles that govern host–pathogen interactions across diverse systems.
Ultimately, we seek to understand not only how infection takes hold, but how a complex human host, beit co-infection, prior immunity immunity, determines its outcome. Humans and pathgoens are complex on their own, but the diveristy that arises from their interaction is an amazing thing to study. -JM
Established: May 2023
Established: May 2023