Our laboratory is broadly interested in enzymatic mechanisms in DNA biochemistry. Our current research is focused on a process known as transformational recombination which occurs in the major human pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae. S. pneumoniae is a naturally transformable bacterium that is able to take up DNA from its environment and incorporate this exogenous DNA into its own chromosome. This process serves as a general mutational mechanism which in recent years has allowed S. pneumoniae to develop resistance to various classes of antibiotics.