This K24 application provides 33% salary support to Dr. Hauser to allow him to mentor MD or MD/PhD fellows, improve his mentorship skills, and pursue patient-oriented research in the area of hospital-acquired bacterial pathogens. In particular, this award will allow him to continue current research on the role of Pseudomonas aeruginosa type III secretion in the progression of pneumonia. Bacterial type III secretion systems form needle-like structures that inject toxins called effector proteins directly into the cytosol of host cells. The goal of this study is to determine how P. aeruginosa wields effector proteins in vivo to cause severe pneumonia. The focus will be on interactions between the host innate immune system and effector proteins. The relevance of these findings will be confirmed in human patients infected with P. aeruginosa. In addition to expediting current research, this award will allow Dr. Hauser to expand his research into a new area. Approaches used in the past to address the question of why some P. aeruginosa strains are more virulent than others will now be applied to another hospital-acquired pathogen: Acinetobacter baumannii. Accessory genomic elements (genetic material found in some strains but not in others) will be identified that encode pathogenic factors and enhance the virulence of strains containing them. These markers for hypervirulent strains will be validated in human patients with A. baumannii infections. Both these projects further characterize disease mechanism by utilizing studies involving face-to-face contact with patients. They are thus ideal training vehicles for junior clinician investigators. In summary, this K24 award will provide salary support and research funds to allow Dr. Hauser to spend more of his time mentoring clinical fellows in patient-oriented research, to expand his patient-oriented research activities, and to enhance his mentoring skills.

Public Health Relevance

This K24 award provides salary support for Dr. Hauser to allow him to spend 33% of his time mentoring MD fellows, performing patient-oriented research, and enhancing his mentoring skills. The expanded research program in patient-oriented research will focus on the hospital-acquired pathogens Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii, and will provide ideal vehicles for the training of junior clinician investigators.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24)
Project #
5K24AI104831-05
Application #
9293987
Study Section
Microbiology and Infectious Diseases B Subcommittee (MID)
Program Officer
Ernst, Nancy L
Project Start
2013-07-10
Project End
2018-08-31
Budget Start
2017-07-01
Budget End
2018-08-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Northwestern University at Chicago
Department
Microbiology/Immun/Virology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
005436803
City
Chicago
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60611
Krapp, Fiorella; Ozer, Egon A; Qi, Chao et al. (2018) Case Report of an Extensively Drug-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection With Genomic Characterization of the Strain and Review of Similar Cases in the United States. Open Forum Infect Dis 5:ofy074
Hughes, A J; Knoten, C A; Morris, A R et al. (2018) ASC acts in a caspase-1-independent manner to worsen acute pneumonia caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. J Med Microbiol 67:1168-1180
Rhodes, Nathaniel J; Cruce, Caroline E; O'Donnell, J Nicholas et al. (2018) Resistance Trends and Treatment Options in Gram-Negative Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia. Curr Infect Dis Rep 20:3
Rutherford, Victoria; Yom, Kelly; Ozer, Egon A et al. (2018) Environmental reservoirs for exoS+ and exoU+ strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Environ Microbiol Rep 10:485-492
Kociolek, Larry K; Ozer, Egon A; Gerding, Dale N et al. (2018) Whole-genome analysis reveals the evolution and transmission of an MDR DH/NAP11/106 Clostridium difficile clone in a paediatric hospital. J Antimicrob Chemother 73:1222-1229
Prickett, Michelle H; Hauser, Alan R; McColley, Susanna A et al. (2017) Aminoglycoside resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis results from convergent evolution in the mexZ gene. Thorax 72:40-47
Henry, Christopher S; Rotman, Ella; Lathem, Wyndham W et al. (2017) Generation and Validation of the iKp1289 Metabolic Model for Klebsiella pneumoniae KPPR1. J Infect Dis 215:S37-S43
Krapp, Fiorella; Morris, Andrew R; Ozer, Egon A et al. (2017) Virulence Characteristics of Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Strains from Patients with Necrotizing Skin and Soft Tissue Infections. Sci Rep 7:13533
Ozer, Egon A; Hauser, Alan R; Gerding, Dale N et al. (2017) Complete Genome Sequence of Clostridioides difficile Epidemic Strain DH/NAP11/106/ST-42, Isolated from Stool from a Pediatric Patient with Diarrhea. Genome Announc 5:
Hauser, Alan R; Mecsas, Joan; Moir, Donald T (2016) Beyond Antibiotics: New Therapeutic Approaches for Bacterial Infections. Clin Infect Dis 63:89-95

Showing the most recent 10 out of 29 publications