Urinary tract infections occur when microbes such as bacteria from the skin or rectum infect the urethra, then ascend to the bladder and/or kidneys. If left untreated, a UTI can lead to sepsis, a life-threatening condition.
“Half of all women will have at least one UTI by the age of 35,” said Shea, an assistant professor in the department of microbiology and immunology. “Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is becoming a problem, so we have to find new strategies for tackling UTIs.”
Women are more likely to develop urinary tract infections because their urethra is shorter, making it easier for bacteria to reach the bladder.
“Dr. Shea brings to our university a distinct but complementary area of research in a field with a recognized need for advancement of scientific knowledge,” said Kevin R. Macaluso, Ph.D., professor and Locke Distinguished Chair of Microbiology and Immunology at the Whiddon College of Medicine.
Shea works primarily with Uropathogenic E. coli, which causes the majority of UTIs. “We delete genes in the bacteria with the hopes of decreasing their ability to colonize the host and cause infection,” she said. “Using a mouse model, we assess the bacterial pathogenesis mechanisms and how the bladder and kidney cells respond to the bacteria.”
She also examines protein signaling pathways in host urinary tract cells to identify which are important for the spread of infection. Such research could ultimately lead to new treatments for UTIs.
Shea said she was attracted to the Whiddon College of Medicine by the department’s capability to conduct single-cell sorting and gene expression analyses, and the expertise in that field held by researcher Robert A. Barrington, Ph.D., who has more than 20 years of experience in flow cytometry.
This technology will provide new, and more detailed, insight into the host cell’s reaction to bacterial infection. “We will be able to measure the unique response of each individual cell type in the urinary tract,” Shea said. “This is particularly interesting in complex organs, such as the kidneys, which consist of multiple unique epithelial cell types.”
Shea earned her doctoral degree in biomedical sciences at the University of Florida, with an emphasis in cellular and molecular biology. She then completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan under Harry Mobley, Ph.D., an expert in Gram-negative bacterial pathogenesis research. “Now, the goal is a combination of the two – looking at both the host and bacterial response in urinary tract infections, to understand mechanisms at the host-pathogen interface,” she said.
