Bansil, Erramilli and collaborators uncover mechanism for trans-mucin migration of ulcer-causing bacteria

August 12, 2009

Professors Rama Bansil and Shyam Erramilli, former graduate student Jonathan Celli, and collaborators from Harvard Medical School and MIT, have uncovered the process by which the bacterium H. Pylori is able to move through the mucous lining in our stomachs, causing ulcers and even cancer. Celli, currently a research fellow at Harvard/MGH, used rheology and microscopy to solve the problem of how the bacterium is able to move through the gel.

Those findings, which have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have implications for the prevention and treatment of H. Pylori infections.

Read more about their discovery at the NSF website.