Richard P. Darveau

Dr. Darveau received his Ph.D. in bacteriology from Washington State University and did his postdoctoral research in the Department of Microbiology at the University of British Columbia studying structure/function relationships in the outer membrane of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. He is a Research Professor in the Department of Periodontics.

Our research is centered on the innate host response to microbial colonization and infection. We are keenly interested in the inflammatory component of the innate host response. Our laboratory studies both the microbial components that elicit inflammation and the activation pathways employed by the host in response to different microbial components. We study responses to both commensal and pathogenic bacteria. We employ biochemical isolation and analytical techniques to characterize the microbial components. Examples of microbial components that we have studied are lipopolysaccharide form gram negative bacteria and lipoteichoic acid from gram positive bacteria. We use a variety of different in vitro cell culture systems to analyze host responses. Examples of systems that have used are human and mouse endothelial cells, human epithelial cells, human and mouse monocytes. We also construct cell lines (both stable and transient) to examine select components of the host innate response system.

The goal of our laboratory is to understand how the host discriminates between commensal and pathogenic bacteria and in turn how bacteria may capitalize on these host pathways to create disease.