{"id":1624,"date":"2014-09-08T18:21:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T18:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mic.med.virginia.edu\/criss\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-05-04T20:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:42:29","slug":"more","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/criss\/","title":{"rendered":"Criss Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Criss<\/a>

Criss Lab Spring 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Neisserial Pathogenesis<\/h3>\n

The Criss laboratory in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology<\/a> at the University of Virginia investigates the pathogenic mechanisms of Neisseria gonorrhoeae<\/em>, the cause of the bacterial sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. Gonorrhea affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide every year and has devastating effects on human health. No vaccine against N. gonorrhoeae <\/em>exists, and strains of N. gonorrhoeae <\/em>have now emerged that are essentially untreatable with available antibiotics, leading the CDC to identify antibiotic-resistant N. gonorrhoeae <\/em>as an \u201curgent,\u201d highest-level public health threat.<\/p>\n

Our primary research interest is to understand how N. gonorrhoeae<\/em> resists clearance by the human immune system. Acute gonorrhea is an inflammatory disease characterized by the recruitment of large numbers of neutrophils to the site of infection. Although neutrophils are generally considered the body\u2019s first defenders against microbial challenge, our research has shown that primary human neutrophils are ineffective at killing N. gonorrhoeae<\/em>. We have found that N. gonorrhoeae<\/em> not only encodes gene products that defend against neutrophils and their antimicrobial products, but also prevents neutrophils from fully activating their antimicrobial arsenal. By exploring how N. gonorrhoeae <\/em>responds to and protects itself from neutrophils, this research can reveal vulnerabilities in the pathogen\u2019s defense mechanisms that can be therapeutically exploited to combat this prevalent, debilitating infectious disease.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Neisserial Pathogenesis The Criss laboratory in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology at the University of Virginia investigates the pathogenic mechanisms of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the cause of the bacterial sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. Gonorrhea affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide every year and has devastating effects on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1777,"featured_media":852,"parent":0,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCriss Lab -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Criss Laboratory investigates the pathogenic mechanisms of\u00a0Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the cause of the bacterial sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/criss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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