Baylor College of Medicine will receive a grant of up to $19.5 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health and its Genomic Centers of Infectious Diseases Program. This grant will fund Baylor research to study mucosal infection (bacteria, viruses and parasites) through the use of genomics and organoid model systems – cell-derived, in vitro 3D organ models that enable the study of biological processes.
“Incorporating genomics with novel organoid approaches will facilitate the dissection of host-pathogen-microbiome molecular relationships, potentially revealing novel therapeutic and diagnostic interventions for life-threatening infectious diseases,” said Dr. Joseph Petrosino, director of the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research and professor and interim chair of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine.
Petrosino will serve as co-principal investigator for the grant along with Dr. Richard Gibbs, Wofford Cain Chair and Professor and director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor.