Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a Project Grant totaling $810,181 to the University of California Santa Cruz on April 20, 2026, under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855). This award supports a five-year research initiative (concluding March 31, 2031) investigating how bacterial pathogens sense and respond to host environmental cues—specifically iron availability and oxidative stress—to regulate virulence gene expression during infection. The research utilizes Yersinia pseudotuberculosis as a model pathogen to examine how the iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster coordinating transcription factor IscR orchestrates regulation of the Type III Secretion System (T3SS) virulence factor in response to cellular Fe-S cluster demand.

The grant deliverables include fundamental research findings that will elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which pathogens overcome host defenses during tissue colonization, with particular focus on how IscR strategically overrides H-NS-mediated silencing of horizontally-acquired virulence genes in response to spatiotemporal fluctuations in host iron and oxidative stress. Findings from this investigator-initiated biomedical research are expected to advance scientific understanding of bacterial pathogenesis mechanisms and may inform development of novel therapeutic interventions for infections caused by iron-regulated pathogens, contributing to improved public health outcomes in infectious disease prevention and treatment.