This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) grant totaling $844,975 was awarded to Northwestern University on April 1, 2025 to support a 5-year research project titled "CAREER: SURVIVAL STRATEGIES: USING CONTEXTUAL CUES FOR ACCURATE CELL DECISION-MAKING IN CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS". The project aims to investigate how the bacterial pathogen Salmonella typhimurium makes rapid and accurate survival decisions when engulfed by immune cells. By combining microfluidics and live-cell imaging, the research will track Salmonella's virulence responses at the single-cell level to determine how contextual cues impact the bacteria's ability to adapt to the intracellular environment. This work could lay the groundwork for disrupting bacterial decision-making as a means to treat disease. The educational component of the project will also introduce high school students to cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques through a hands-on curriculum integrating biology, coding, and imaging. No sub-awards are planned for this grant.
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