Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Indiana University Schol of Medicine
Dr. Nelson completed his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Dr. Kevin Young at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine where he studied the functions of peptidogylcan remodeling enzymes in Escherichia coli. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Harlan Caldwell's laboratory at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Rocky Mountain laboratories, where he trained in chlamydial pathogenesis.
Dr. Nelson's group currently works in two distinct, but sometimes, overlapping areas of microbial pathogenesis. One focus is the identification and characterization of chlamydial virulence factors that allow these pathogens to target specific tissues and circumvent immunity. His group has already identified several factors that mediate chlamydial tissues tropism and immune evasion. Long-term goals of these projects are the identification of suitable vaccine antigens and the design of efficacious anti-chlamydial vaccines. A second focus of his laboratory is urogenital pathogen discovery. These projects apply powerful "omics" type approaches (microbiome, proteome, genome, transcriptome) to specimens from large clinical cohorts. Dr. Nelson's group was the first to demonstrate that the distal urethras of men support microbial communities that resemble those present in the vagina, and contributed to the discovery of a novel clade of Neisseria meningitidis which is an emerging uropathogen. Long-term goals of these projects are the discovery of novel and emerging urogenital pathogens, the development of improved treatment modalities for urogenital infections, and the design of diagnostics for improved evaluation of urogenital disease.