Department of Biomedical Sciences

Issue
Due to deteriorating environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean and coastal estuaries, shellfish hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest are unable to produce adequate oyster seed for farmers. The problem is further evidenced and compounded by the fact that there has been virtually no natural (wild) oysterseed set in Willapa Bay for four years. Willapa Bay relies heavily on wild set oyster seed and, as the largest producer of oysters on the West Coast (more than 50%), the West Coast oyster industry is facing imminent collapse.

Pathogenic species have to deal with a wide range of environments both within and outside the host and most have elaborate regulatory circuits to ensure the correct temporal and spatial expression of virulence factors. However, in most cases the primary clues used by the bacteria to determine whether they are in the host and the mechanisms by which this sensing occurs are not well understood. Vibrio cholerae is the causative agent of the potentially lethal epidemic diarrheal disease cholera.