Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hello. My name is
John Mekalanos.
I'm at Harvard Medical
School and have been
doing research on cholera
for nearly 30 years now
and today what I'd
like to do is present
a lecture on cholera
with the focus point
being the use of this
organism through
the years as a model
system for understanding
the emergence of bacterial
pathogens meaning by that
the process by which
an organism that
is not a pathogen becomes
a pathogen for humans.
The virulence mechanisms of
this particular
organism is again
a paradigm for understanding
virulence mechanisms in general
for pathogenic bacteria and
finally, some research
that I've been involved in
that has tried to understand
temporal patterns of disease.
This is an epidemic
disease capable of
global pandemics and through
the years the field has
noticed that cholera
epidemics come and go with
the seasonality and
the beginning and
ending of a cholera epidemic
is quite dramatic in
natural endemic areas, such
as Bangladesh and India.
I think we're starting to get
a better appreciation for
the factors that cause
seasonality and in particular
other factors that result in
cholera epidemics ending,
which is an exciting new
development in the field.
1:18
So, here's an outline of the
lecture I'll give today.
I'm going to touch briefly on
the history of the disease
and the nature of
the organism Vibrio cholerae,
the bacterial agent.
I'll talk a little bit
about the pathobiology of
the disease and then
focus in on the
molecular pathogenesis,
the factors that are
involved and actually
causing the disease that
the bacterium produces.
We'll spend some
time talking about
the genetic basis for virulence
that is the genetic elements
that encode these factors.
Then, finally, we'll
move to the issue of
the epidemiology of
cholera and the role of
bacteriophages of
bacterial viruses
in influencing the temporal
pattern of disease and
finally, I'll touch
upon immunity and
some progress that is being made
in vaccine development
for cholera.
