Over the past few months, several Medical Microbiology & Immunology faculty and students have been awarded research grants and fellowships for their outstanding projects and work. Grants and fellowships are extremely competitive and we want to congratulate everyone on their successful applications! Please see the list below of awardees:
- Grad Student Mitch Ledwith in Andy Mehle’s lab was awarded a 3-year fellowship through the NSF Graduate Research Fellow Program (June 1).
- Postdoc Hector Burgos-Robles received a 2-year NIH/NIGMS Research Supplement to Promote Diversity to support his research under Mark Mandel’s parent grant “Genetic Analysis of Beneficial Bacterial Colonization” (June 1).
- The award will allow Hector to carry out research project to characterize factors that play a role in colonization of squid by Vibrio fischeri. The first part of the project focuses on determining the role that copper, which is highly toxic, has during initiation of the squid-vibrio symbiosis. The second part of the project will develop and study a barcoded deletion library of 380 putative host colonization factors. These studies will increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that bacteria employ to specifically colonize animal epithelial tissues, and contribute to both improving human health and developing biotechnology applications. In addition, this award provides the opportunity for career development to prepare me for academic faculty positions in the future, including developing computational skills, gaining leadership and mentorship experience, and participating in outreach events.
- JD Sauer received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award for his project titled “The War Within: Identification and Characterization of Antibacterial Cell Instrinsic Defenses in the Host Cell Cytosol” (July 1).
- JD Sauer received an NIH/NIAID R01 research grant award for his project titled “Identification and Characterization of Genes Required for Listeria monocytogenes” (Sept 24).
- Jenny Gumperz received a NIH/NIAID R01 research grant award for her project titled “Mechanisms of iNKT cell anti-viral adjuvancy” (Aug 7).
- Lindsay Kalan has been awarded a pilot project through the NIH/NIAMS-funded UW Skin Disease Research Center titled “Host-Microbiome Interactions and Cutaneous Tissue Repair” which will start Nov 1.
- Lindsay Kalan’s project titled “Defining Host-Microbiome Interactions in Diabetic Wound Healing” has been selected for funding by the NIH/NIDDK-funded Diabetic Complications Consortium’s DiaComp Pilot & Feasibility program.
- Mark Mandel and Anna Huttenlocher received a NIH/NIGMS Joint Equipment Supplement totaling $400,000 to support the purchase of an upright confocal microscope and VAST BioImager System (Sept).
- Postdoc Bruno Martorelli di Genova in Laura Knoll’s lab was awarded a 3-year 2018 Morgridge Metabolism Interdisciplinary Fellowship (Sept 1).