The Hooven Lab for Neonatal Bacterial Pathogenesis Research

Seeking to Understand and Prevent Bacterial Infections that Threaten Newborns and their Mothers

Under the leadership of Thomas Hooven, MD, researchers at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh are addressing the problem of serious bacterial infections that affect newborns. These infections can be life threatening and many are associated with long-term complications that create challenges for growing children and their families for years to come.

The Hooven Lab seeks to understand the molecular interactions between babies and bacteria that give rise to these infections. Why do some bacteria cause infections in newborns but rarely in older children and adults? How do babies protect themselves from the many billions of new bacteria that they encounter in the first few weeks of life? Can a better understanding of neonatal immunity help drive new treatments to reduce the burden of serious bacterial infections during this uniquely vulnerable period of life? These are the kinds of questions we seek to answer through molecular and genetic investigations of newborns, bacteria, and their interactions.

Group B Streptococcus Infections

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is the most common cause of neonatal infectious morbidity and mortality in the United States and in many countries around the world. GBS is commonly found colonizing the adult intestine and reproductive tract, but rarely causes serious disease outside of infancy. Around the newborn period, however, GBS can cause serious infections: sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia, and joint infections. While some of the ways that GBS causes newborn infections are understood, unanswered questions remain. Our lab is using bioinformatics, high-throughput approaches, and novel disease models to understand how and why neonatal GBS infections occur.

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a normal part of the adult intestinal and reproductive tracts) and can cause infection in newborns through two separate pathways. In early-onset disease (within the first week of life), GBS in the birth canal colonizes the newborn around the time of delivery. In late-onset disease (after the first week), the bacterial exposure occurs in the infant’s environment.

Placental Health and Prematurity

The placenta is a dynamic organ that supports fetal growth while also serving as a critical immune interface between mother and fetus. Our lab studies how placental immune defenses are established, how they respond to infection and inflammation, and how disruptions in these processes contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes. By integrating human samples, experimental models, and systems-level approaches, we aim to understand how placental immune dysfunction can lead to complications such as preterm birth and increased susceptibility to neonatal infection. Ultimately, this work seeks to identify mechanisms that could inform new strategies to protect both maternal and newborn health.

Together with collaborators at UPMC Magee-Womens Research Institute, the Hooven Lab is using advanced spatial transcriptomic techniques to understand the molecular signals that occur in the placenta during normal pregnancy and when a fetus is challenged with a bacterial infection. In the above images, placental tissue is shown with histological cellular staining (left) and with transcriptomic patterns overlaid (right), illustrating the regional complexity of placental cellular biology.

Thomas Hooven, MD

Principal Investigator
thomas.hooven@chp.edu
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Gideon Hillebrand
Graduate Student

Elizabeth Giacobe
Graduate Student

Austin Neel
Graduate Student

Sophia Carlin
Laboratory Technician

Contact Us

The Hooven Lab
UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
John G. Rangos Sr. Research Center, Room 8128
4401 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224
412-692-7314

Lab Activities and Achievements

Funding and Publicity

The Hooven Lab is supported by sustained federal, foundation, and institutional funding to study perinatal infection, placental immunity, and neonatal health. Current support includes multiple NIH awards as Principal Investigator, including two R01s focused on bacterial determinants of neonatal colonization and infection, host–pathogen interactions, and microbial metabolic and signaling pathways during perinatal disease. Additional funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and philanthropic foundations supports high-risk, high-reward approaches integrating microbial genetics, placental biology, and systems-level analysis.

Our work has been disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publications in journals spanning microbiology, immunology, pediatrics, and computational biology, as well as invited lectures and platform presentations at national and international scientific meetings. Lab members regularly present research at major conferences, including Pediatric Academic Societies, the Gordon Research Conference on Streptococcal Biology, and international symposia focused on perinatal infection and neonatal outcomes. The lab also engages with broader audiences through invited webinars, podcasts, and interdisciplinary forums at the intersection of neonatology, microbiology, and data science.

Mentoring and Trainee Accomplishments

A central mission of the Hooven Lab is the training and mentorship of the next generation of physician-scientists, basic scientists, and interdisciplinary researchers. The lab has trained and mentored graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, neonatology fellows, residents, medical students, undergraduates, and visiting scholars from the U.S. and abroad.

Trainees in the lab have led first-author publications, received competitive travel and research awards, delivered invited platform talks, and earned recognition for outstanding research presentations. Several mentees have progressed to independent research positions, faculty appointments, or advanced clinical training programs. Current trainees are pursuing projects spanning bacterial genetics, CRISPR-based functional genomics, placental immune responses, neonatal infection models, and translational applications relevant to pregnancy and newborn health.

Through formal thesis advising, fellowship mentorship, and near-peer training programs, the lab emphasizes rigorous science, collaborative problem-solving, and career development tailored to diverse professional trajectories in academic medicine, research, and biotechnology.

Presentations at Scientific Meetings

2020

Together with collaborators Ansaf Salleb-Aouissi, PhD, and Adam Lin of New York’s Columbia University, Dr. Hooven presented work on novel machine learning approaches to predict necrotizing enterocolitis at the virtual Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning.

Dammann, AN, Chamby, AB, Gonzalez, FJ, Hooven, TA, Ratner, AJ. “Group B Streptococcus capsular serotype alters vaginal colonization fitness.” Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2021, doi:10.1093/infdis/jiab559. DOI 10.1093/infdis/jiab559. PMID 34788438.

Lin, YC, Salleb-Aouissi, A, Hooven, TA. “Interpretable prediction of necrotizing enterocolitis from machine learning analysis of premature infant stool microbiota.” BMC Bioinformatics. 2022, 23(104), DOI 10.1186/s12859-022-04618-w. PMID 35337258.

Keith, MF, Gopalakrishna, KP, Bhavana, VH, Hillebrand, GH, Elder, JL, Megli, CJ, Sadovsky, Y, Hooven, TA. “Nitric oxide production and effects in group B Streptococcus chorioamnionitis.” Pathogens. 2022, 11:1115. DOI 10.3390/pathogens11101115. PMID 36297171.

Gopalakrishna, KP*, Hillebrand, GH* (*co-first authors), Bhavana, VH, Elder, JE, D’Mello, A, Tettelin, H, Hooven, TA. “Group B Streptococcus Cas9 variants for programmable gene repression and insights into CRISPR-Cas transcriptional effects.” Communications Biology. 2023, 6:620. DOI 10.1038/s42003-023-04994 . PMID 37296208.

Bhavana, VH, Hillebrand, GH, Gopalakrishna, KP, Ratner, AJ, Tettelin, H, Hooven, TA. “A group B Streptococcus indexed transposon mutant library to accelerate genetic research on an important perinatal pathogen.” Microbiology Spectrum. 2023. DOI 10.1128/spectrum.02046-23. PMID 37933989.

Liang, CS, Sebastian, A, McKennan, C, Bertoni, CB, Hooven, TA, Kisch, M, Schwabenbauer, K, Yanowitz, T, King, BC. “Clinical and economic impacts of a modified-observational screening approach to well-appearing infants born to mothers with chorioamnionitis.” Journal of Perinatology. 2023, 1-8. DOI 10.1038/s41372-023-01858-3. PMID 38155229.

Megli, CJ, DePuyt, AE, Goff, JP, Munyoki, SK, Hooven, TA, Jašarević, E, “Diet influences community dynamics following vaginal group B streptococcus colonization.” Microbiology Spectrum. 2024. DOI 10.1128/spectrum.03623-23. PMID 38722155.

Vollmuth N, Bridgers BE, Armstrong ML, Gildea A, Wood J, Espinal ER, Hooven TA, Barbieri G, Westermann AJ, Sauerwein T, Foerstner KU, Schubert-Unkmeir A, Kim BJ. “Group B Streptococcus transcriptome when interacting with brain endothelial cells.” Journal of Bacteriology. 2024. DOI 10.1128/jb.00087-24. PMID 38771039.

Firestone, K*, Gopalakrishna, KP* (*co-first authors), Rogers, LM, Peters, A, Gaddy, JE, Varela, HN, Carlin, SM, Hillebrand, GH, Giacobe, EJ, Aronoff, DM, Hooven, TA. “A CRISPRi library screen in group B Streptococcus identifies surface immunogenic protein (Sip) as a mediator of multiple host interactions. Infection and Immunity. 2025. DOI 10.1128/iai.00573-24. PMID 40116487.

Hillebrand, GH, Carlin, SC, Giacobe, EJ, Stephenson, HA, Collins, J, Hooven, TA. “A Cas12a Toolbox for Rapid and Flexible Group B Streptococcus Genomic Editing and CRISPRi.” Molecular Microbiology. 2025. DOI doi:10.1111/mmi.70022. PMID 40944362.

We’d Like to Hear From You!

The Hooven Lab is looking for talented post-doctoral fellows and graduate students interested in infectious disease, bioinformatics, and pediatric outcomes. Please contact Dr. Hooven via email at thomas.hooven@chp.edu if you are interested.