Laurie Ristow Receives NIH F32 Award!

Dr Laurie Ristow in the Welch laboratory has received notification of the award of her postdoctoral fellowship application entitled, Identification of Host factors Required for the Cytolytic Activity of Hemolysin from Uropathogenic Escherichia coli.  Dr Ristow is employing the CRISPR-Cas9 system of mutagenesis to identify host cell genes that are involved in the cytotoxic activity of the principal toxin produced by strains of E. coli involved in upper urinary tract infections and sepsis.  This work is being done in collaboration with Andy Mehle’s and JD Sauer’s laboratories in our department.  Dr. Ristow received her Ph.D. under the direction of Dr. Jenifer Coburn at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  Dr. Ristow’s Ph.D thesis work characterized the importance of the integrin ligand of Borrelia burgdorferi, P66, in vivo.