Functional Microbiomics, Inflammation and Pathogenicity

University Of Louisville, Louisville KY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Primary goal of the “Functional Microbiomics, Inflammation and Pathogenicity” CoBRE at the UofL is to establish a thematic multidisciplinary research center for the study of the interface between the microbiome, inflammation and pathogenicity. In the last five years, we assembled a cadre of junior investigators with complementary expertise and outstanding potential and have partnered these project leaders with well-qualified and dedicated mentors. An integrated set of complementary projects made novel connections between inflammatory processes and bacterial pathogenicity to establish the basis for the development of novel therapeutics and delivery methods. This has led to successful graduation of five junior faculty with NIH R01 awards and three of these investigators are still at UofL and are transitioning into mentoring roles while establishing their own strong scientific programs. Thus far, research in their laboratories has been supported by a Functional Microbiomics Core that provides germ free animal facilities, anaerobic culture capability, microbiome sequencing and bioinformatics, and assay of inflammatory markers. For many of our junior faculty and their mentors, there is now increasing demand for the ability to image inflammation deeper into tissues in live animals and spatial resolution within the tissues has become an important requirement for many projects. Thus, for the phase II of the FMIP CoBRE, we have made significant commitment to expand our imaging capabilities by adding Multiphoton Intravital Microscopy (MP-IVM), a well-established method for imaging of living, intact biological tissues through the whole organisms to our repertoire of technologies in FMC. We propose to further expand this area by purchasing a CellScape_Chip Cytometry Instrument from Canopy Biosciences. Chip Cytometry can multiplex the spatial proteomics at single cell resolution. This supplement application is requesting partial funding from the NIH to acquire and establish Chip Cytometry at the UofL that will support the research of large number of faculty working in the areas of microbiota, inflammation, and pathogenesis.