Dr. Dahai Yang’s group is interested in fundamental research in microbial-host interactions, innate immune responses, the pathogenesis of inflammatory disease. Specifically, the research focuses on mechanistic studies to understand the role of bacterial infection-induced pyroptosis in regulating multi-organ dysfunction during sepsis. Several approaches that include biochemical reconstitution, cell biology, analysis of genetically modified mutant mice, and zebrafish genetics to identify new components in pathogen-induced inflammasome activation and to further reveal the underlying biochemical mechanism involved in the interaction between microbial/endogenous molecules and sepsis.