Mining Microbial Genomes

In The News

Illinois Professor Douglad A. Mitchell to Receive NIH Director's New Innovator Award 

Douglas A. Mitchell, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, is a recipient of the 2011 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. The award recognizes bold ideas from some of the nation’s most promising new scientists.

The $1.5 million award, given over a period of five years, supports young investigators who have proposed exceptionally creative research ideas that have the potential to produce important medical advances.

Mitchell uses chemical methods to study the mechanisms that contribute to bacterial virulence and antibiotic resistance. His current studies focus on the thiazole/oxazole-modified microcins, a class of microbial compounds with profound structural and functional diversity. While some of these compounds have antibiotic or anticancer activity, others are disease-promoting toxins.

 

WCIA Interview with Bill Metcalf on Fighting Malaria (video) 

University of Illinois researchers are trying to find a way to lower the cost of malaria medicine. The lead investigator, Bill Metcalf, is a Professor of Microbiology. He, along with three other departments and students, wants to speed up production of the antibiotic. This would in turn lower the cost.

They've discovered the genes of the antibiotic already used to treat malaria.

"We first started looking for these genes probably five years ago," says Metcalf. "There's still a problem with it though. The reason it didn't go into human use before is it's too expensive."