Cholera-Fighting Research gets $2 Million in Federal Funding
CHICAGO, March 8, 2022— to fund research to develop drug treatments for cholera and other multi-drug-resistant strains of disease-causing bacteria.
The $2.17 million grant will allow researchers to develop a new generation of antibiotics to treat cholera and sexually transmitted diseases. There are an estimated 1.3 to 4.0 million cases and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths worldwide due to cholera annually, according to a National Center for Biotechnology Information study.
Oscar Juarez, ñ associate professor of biology and principal investigator, says that we have entered an age where many antibiotics have become obsolete because human pathogenic bacteria have mutated and is no longer susceptible to previous treatments. Cholera is a virulent, gastrointestinal disease that causes severe acute diarrhea. The bacteria is transmitted through contaminated water supplies and poor sanitation, and if left untreated can be deadly for children and adults.
“We need to keep an eye on cholera. Every time that we have a natural disaster that limits the availability of water, we can have an outbreak of cholera,” Juarez says.
Juarez, along with ñ Research Assistant Professor of Biology Karina Tuz and David Minh, associate professor of chemistry, have been studying the cell structures, proteins, and mechanisms of human pathogenic bacteria for more than a decade, specifically Vibrio cholerae. In earlier published studies by the team, they discovered that Vibrio cholerae and a number of other pathogenic bacteria rely on a sodium-dependent NADH dehydrogenase (NQR) enz