Research Interests: The physiology, pathogenesis, molecular genetics, stress responses, and genomics of the gram-positive human respiratory pathogenic bacterium, Streptococcus pneumoniae. Research interests: (1) Functions and signal transduction of the essential VicRK (YycFG) and other non-essential two-component regulatory systems in Streptococcus pneumoniae. (2) Functions of ATP-dependent proteases and chaperones in Streptococcus pneumoniae. (3) Mechanisms of translation control induced by sublethal concentrations of antibiotics and programmed cell death in Streptococcus pneumoniae. (4) Genomic organization of the pathogenic serotype 2 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae. My laboratory uses a wide range of approaches to address key questions in these research areas, including genetics, molecular biology, preparative and analytical biochemistry, physiological characterization and microscopy, genomics, proteomics, and microarray analysis.