Ami Bhatt

Biography

In perpetual awe of how 'simple' microbial organisms can perturb complex, multicellular eukaryotic organisms, Ami Bhatt has chosen to dedicate her research program to inspecting, characterizing and dissecting the microbe-human interface. Nowhere is the interaction between hosts and microbes more potentially impactful than in immunocompromised hosts and global settings where infectious and environmental exposures result in drastic and sometimes fatal health consequences.

Research Interest

METAGENOTYPE to PHENOTYPE: Developing advanced molecular methods and computational pipelines to understand the taxonomic distribution and biological pathway representation in communities of microbes in patients undergoing treatment for hematologic malignancies;   GENETIC DETERMINANTS OF VIRULENCE: Using comparative microbial genomic, microbiological and genetic methods to determine the mechanisms of hypervirulence in specific known or candidate pathogens, such as Bacillus cereus and Bradyrhizobium enterica; GENOMIC CHARACTERIZATION OF AN INFECTION-ASSOCIATED CANCER: Pathogenomic evaluation of host and parasite genetic characteristics in squamous cell cancer of the bladder in Northern and Western Africa (a collaboration with Prof. O. Hammam and the Bilharz Research Institute in Giza, Egypt); GLOBALIZING ONCOLOGY: Improving cancer care, education and research in resource limited settings by encouraging technological, knowledge-sharing and research capacity building collaborations internationally (http://globalonc.org).