We aim to achieve a paradigm shift in infection treatment and prevention by developing novel ways to combat stubborn infections.

The Rahme Lab bridges the new knowledge gleaned from the basic sciences and the world of clinical medicine to open new avenues for developing and testing innovative therapeutics to prevent and treat severe and untreatable infections.

Hard-to-eradicate, often untreatable infections, including chronic and relapsing infections and infections of medical devices, pose increasing threats to human health worldwide. Such infections are often refractory to antibiotics due to their resistance to multiple antibiotics and/or antibiotic tolerance of a subpopulation of bacterial cells that are not antibiotic-resistant mutants but rather “dormant” cells that survive antibiotic killing. According to the existing paradigm, many chronic infections are, therefore, untreatable.

Our research is driven to discover critical pathogen and host molecular mechanisms that mediate or restrict bacterial pathogenesis to achieve our aim. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach that uses the non-vertebrate and vertebrate infection models we developed to identify and characterize mechanisms that govern host-pathogen antagonistic interactions. The Rahme Lab is committed to applying the One Health systems biology approach in understanding such conserved mechanisms by using methods drawn from microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, immunology, and physics, with the ultimate goal of developing novel host-protective and anti-bacterial interventions.

Major Lab projects focus on regulatory systems that govern bacterial virulence and host responses to infection, trauma, and cancer. Emphasis is given on quorum sensing (QS) and QS-regulated small molecules in bacterial virulence in mono- and polymicrobial settings and in the inter-kingdom modulation of host responses (immune and metabolic) and host tolerance/resilience to infection. Our discoveries have led to the development of highly promising anti-virulence therapeutics and infection risk-predictive biomarkers for the treatment and prevention of deleterious infections.

We invite you to know more about our specific research projects by clicking on the pictures below: