Biology

Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Biology
Degrees: B.A., Thomas More College; Ph.D., Miami University

Contact Info

Email: thumphre@allegheny.edu
Phone: (814) 332-2967
Website: Click here

Office Info

Office Location: Steffee Hall B211
Office Hours: MT 3:30-5; W 9:30-11:30; F 10-11

Research Interests

My research focuses on the obligate human pathogen Haemophilus ducreyi, the causative agent of the sexually transmitted disease chancroid.  Like other genital ulcer diseases, chancroid facilitates the acquisition and transmission of HIV.  The long term goal of my research is to understand host-pathogen interactions between H. ducreyi and humans.  Projects in my lab examine this interaction from the bacterial side of the interaction, including defining differences between the recently described two classes of H. ducreyi.  Class I and class II H. ducreyi are known to differ in outer membrane components, but not much is known about genetic differences.  Students in my lab discovered that the two classes have multiple point mutations in key virulence genes (pal, wecA, lspA2) as well as a gene commonly used to understand phylogenetic relationships (recA).  When these genes are used to generate phylogenetic trees, the class I and II strains split consistently into two groups.  Future research will focus on studying phylogenetic relationships using housekeeping genes and mutli-locus sequence analysis.