Research funded to study how a dysentery-causing bacterium infects its human host.
Dr Ariel Blocker from the
University's School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine
, in collaboration with Professor Keiichi Namba (
University of Osaka School of Frontier Biosciences, Japan
) and Dr Luca Giuggiolli
(University of Bristol, Centre for Complexity Sciences)
, has been awarded a £750k project grant from the UK
Medical Research Council (MRC)
to carry out research into how a dysentery-causing bacterium infects its human host. This is the largest single award ever received by Dr Blocker's laboratory and it comes after several other productive MRC and Wellcome Trust awards in recent years.
The laboratory, which investigates the microbial secretion mechanisms that underlie how host protein functions are manipulated during infection, will study a secretion system of Shigella flexneri, the infectious organism responsible for bacillary dysentery, which is transmitted through contaminated food or water, or through human contact.
Further information available in the
university news pages