The award for early-career researchers will support research on the proteins that enable bacterial infections.
Courtney Reichhardt, assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded a prestigious Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. The award is intended to provide stability and flexibility to early-career researchers who are studying biological processes with implications for disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
Reichhardt will use the award to pursue several projects on fibrillar adhesins, the proteins bacteria use to stick to each other and surfaces. The proteins enable bacteria to form biofilms on medical devices, a major source of hospital-based infections. “Despite their widespread abundance and prominent role in infections, we have a limited understanding of fibrillar adhesins,” Reichhardt said.
To better understand the structure, folding, and interactions of the proteins, Reichhardt and her lab will study biofilms created by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. “We hope that our discoveries from this research will increase our fundamental understanding of fibrillar adhesin structure and function and provide a roadmap for the study of structurally similar proteins, laying the groundwork for advances in therapeutics for a range of human diseases,” she said.
MIRA grants allow researchers to follow new paths and chase new leads as results come in. “Because of this grant, we’ll be able to adapt our research to answer these challenging questions,” Reichhardt said.
“This award also supports training and mentoring the wonderful and diverse group of scientists in my research group,” Reichhardt added.
