Research Activities
Through our research on infectious diseases, we obtain scientific and epidemiological information that support the development of health strategies to prevent and reduce the spread of infectious agents. We are actively involved in research activities designed to:
- Monitor, identify, and track circulating infectious agents for the assessment of the epidemiological trends of major infectious diseases transmitted among humans, from animals to humans, or through food and contaminated water. Our work includes the isolation and identification of microbial strains that cause these diseases to improve knowledge of their transmission and dissemination.
- Ensure the reliable diagnosis of tuberculosis and the analysis of its transmission dynamics, the prediction of the epidemiological links between cases, and the determination of the antimycobacterial susceptibility profiles of strains isolated from Lebanese nationals, refugees, and migrants.
- Detect and characterize antibiotic resistance mechanisms in clinical and non-clinical bacterial strains
- Discover alternative compounds and antibiotics that can contain the spread of bacteria in medical and food environments. Potential alternatives include peptides extracted from bacterial strains, or compounds derived from aromatic plants, or the use of beneficial bacteria, such as probiotics, in the fight against unwanted microbial species and in the treatment of some chronic diseases.
- Evaluate the immune status of Lebanese nationals and refugee populations against a range of infectious diseases, and characterize the mechanisms of interaction between the immune system and certain medically important microorganisms.
- Characterize newly identified microbial species by conventional and advanced methods (e.g. MALDI-TOF).
Areas of Research
Researchers at the LMSE conduct research on the following topics:
- Tuberculosis: strengthening national surveillance capacities, investigating transmission dynamics, and detecting potential clonal emergence of MDR and XDR
- Antibiotic resistance: molecular epidemiology of resistant bacteria in humans, animals, the environment, and food products
- Probiotics and antimicrobial peptides: selection and assessment of active strains, purification of active metabolites, probiotics and their medical potential, and food applications
- Immunity and infections: evaluation of the population's immune status against infectious diseases, characterization of host/pathogen interactions
- Parasitic diseases: surveillance and acquisition of better knowledge on the epidemiology, transmission, pathophysiology, and genetic diversity of medically important parasites
- Typing: understanding the population structure of micro-organisms, prediction of epidemiological links, and supervision of the transmission of pathogenic and virulent strains
- Applied Bioinformatics in Microbiology: microbial systematics and classification, bio-surveillance, infectious disease epidemiology, and development of updated databases in microbiology
- Natural bioactive substances: extraction of newly discovered essential oils, characterization of different bioactive molecules, applications in both the medical and food sectors
Achievements
- Identification and isolation of the first 3 XDR-TB cases detected in Lebanon, carried out in a recent collaborative nationwide study with Lebanese, French, and other international partners (to be published in the EID Journal).
- Continuous antimicrobial resistance surveillance showing high resistance rates to most antibiotics especially to beta-lactams, fluoroquinolones, and tetracyclines, among clinical and non-clinical bacterial isolates.
- Ground-breaking report on the emergence of plasmid-mediated colistin-resistance in Lebanese males, conducted in collaboration with ANSES Lyon (work in progress).
- Pioneering investigation of the antifungal susceptibility patterns of clinical Aspergillus strains, showing high levels of resistance to amphotericin B and triazoles.
- Isolation of potentially pathogenic Aeromonas spp. with multidrug-resistant phenotypes from various water samples in Lebanon, including those taken from wells used to provide water for human consumption.
- Identification of potentially pathogenic and multidrug-resistant Vibrio spp. from fish meant for human consumption, freshly caught in the sea or raised in fisheries.
- Development of the innovative “LABiocin database”, especially designed for lactic acid bacterial bacteriocins.
- Characterization of probiotic strains, which seem to modulate inflammation in the mouse model by way of various mechanisms that include the strengthening the gut barrier.
- Discovery of a new relationship between a Lebanese probiotic strain that has appeared recently and autophagy during chronic inflammation: potential application in Crohn's disease.
- In collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, we assessed the current status of cutaneous leishmaniasis among Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
- Study of the genetic diversity, prevalence of infection, and possible zoonotic transmission of Campylobacter and Blastocystis in the poultry and bovid sectors of Lebanon, in collaboration with WHO, ANSES Ploufragan Laboratoires and the Pasteur Institute of Lille-France.
- Identification of an essential oil showing important antimicrobial effects on a variety of fungi and bacteria that include drug-resistant strains.
- Demonstration of the modest level of immune-mediated protection against vaccine-preventable diseases, such as pertussis and tetanus, among pregnant Lebanese women.
As part of the Gabriel network
The LMSE was a key participant in Gabriel Network's PEARL project (Pneumonias’ Etiology Among Refugees and Lebanese population) that was conducted in Lebanon from November 2016 to March 2018.
Currently, the laboratory is involved in the HINTT Study, which uses the HBHA-IGRA technique to diagnose tuberculosis. This multicenter project aims to evaluate a new immunological technique to diagnose tuberculosis, and to identify candidate biomarkers that may potentially be used to monitor the efficacy of tuberculosis treatments.