Research Projects

Shedding microbial extracellular vesicles (EVs) is a mechanism for cell-cell communication between species. Bacterial EVs carry key signatures of bacterial cells, including toxins, genes, cytosolic contents, and genetic materials, potentially influencing host immunity and microbial competition. These EVs, particularly those produced by beneficial gut bacteria, interact directly at the mucosal surface, a primary site for host-microbe interaction. EVs hold great promise in the biomedical field due to their nanosized vesicular end product. With advancements in bioengineering bacterial vectors, designing functionalized EVs and exploring their potential as a multimodal delivery platform is highly promising. The intrinsic ability of EVs to serve as carriers for heterologous proteins is encouraged. To achieve key objectives, an optimized working protocol for harvesting EVs secreted by bioengineered bacteria, such as Lactic Acid Producing Bacteria (LAB), will be developed. Then, efforts will be invested to evaluate their pertinency as a multimodal delivery platform from heterologous antigens in infectious disease control and prevention.