Gram-positive infections are among the most common in today's hospitals and antibiotic-resistance often makes these diseases difficult to treat. I am working on developing a Gram-positive pathogen-host model system using Enterococcus and C. elegans. I hypothesize that I can use such a system to identify virulence factors important to mammalian pathogenesis. I hope that such research will lead to better understanding of how these organisms cause disease.