Other projects

While our research group focuses a high percentage of our energy on research addressing the chlamydiae, there are other projects that we have an interest in.  The most significant additional areas of work are in drug discovery and analysis of bacterial pathogens of fish.  A discussion of our drug discovery research will not be presented here, but the article listed below describes the nature of our work in the biology of fish-pathogenic bacteria.  We focus primarily on genomics and genetics in Renibacterium salmoninarum, a serious pathogen of salmonids that has significant impact on the function of aquaculture and the restoration of endangered salmon stocks.  We continue to work on this organism with a goal of identifying novel drug targets and possible vaccine candidates.  Much of this work is conducted collaboratively with Greg Wiens of the National Center for Cool and Coldwater Aquaculture and Mark Strom of the Northwest Fisheries Science center. 

Wiens, G. D., D. D. Rockey (co-first authors), (13 addl. authors) and Mark S. Strom. 2008.   The genome sequence of the fish pathogen Renibacterium salmoninarum suggests reductive evolution away from an environmental Arthrobacter ancestor. Journal of Bacteriology 190: 6970-6982.