Rebecca Montgomery, PhD, is working on multiple projects to understand N. gonorrhoeae and Gardnerella species infections. She has cloned several human male urethral epithelial cell lines and is characterizing them for infection with each of the pathogenic bacterial species and determining how those species affect infection by the others. In addition, she is characterizing the mechanisms of ciliated cell death in human Fallopian tube tissue grown in organ culture. While it is known that peptidoglycan fragments from N. gonorrhoeae lead to the death of the ciliated cells during PID, the mechanisms of cell death are not known.