Dr. Salje’s research focuses on understanding how obligate intracellular bacteria interact with their eukaryotic host cells and how this causes disease. Research is primarily focused on rickettsial organisms, a family of arthropod-borne obligate intracellular bacteria, in particular the mite-borne organism Orientia tsutsugamushi that causes the severe human disease scrub typhus. Dr. Salje’s research is based both at Rutgers, New Jersey and in Bangkok, Thailand, where scrub typhus is endemic. This arrangement ensures rapid translation of advances in fundamental research into clinically relevant outcomes.