Three further NIH awards to IDM: TB and respiratory & breast milk microbiota studies

Our congratulations to a number of IDM Members who have been awarded NIH grants.

Professor Jonathan Blackburn is PI for an NIH R01 grant award from 2017 to 2022 entitled "A 100-fold more sensitive TB diagnostic based on magnetic concentration and 'coffee ring' formation". His Co-PIs are Dr. Rick Haselton and Dr. David Wright of Vanderbilt University, USA.

The NIH H3A U01 grant funding "Breast Milk Microbiota Influence on Infant Immunity and Growth" for 5 years has been awarded to Alash'le Abimiku from the Institute of Human Virology in Abuja, Nigeria. Alash'le is a member of the IDM's International Scientific Advisory Committee and will collaborate on this study with IDM Members Professor Jonathan Blackburn, Professor Clive Gray and paediatrician Dr Heather Jaspan.

Professor Mark Nicol has been awarded, as PI, an NIH U54 grant to establish a consortium to study the respiratory microbiota in African children ("Center for Research on the Respiratory Microbiota of African Children"). His collaborators are from the MRC in The Gambia and J. Craig Venter Institute in the USA.