Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded University of California, Berkeley $756,714 under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) on April 1, 2026, for a five-year project period concluding March 31, 2031. This Project Grant supports biomedical research investigating the interplay between protein secretion mechanisms and lipid virulence factors in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection and host immune suppression. The research will deliver scientific knowledge regarding how the ESX-1 Type VII secretion system and phthiocerol dimycocerosate (PDIM) lipid function individually and collectively to evade and suppress host immune responses, with specific focus on mechanisms involving Th17 CD4 T cell suppression and Type I interferon induction.

The funded research comprises three integrated research aims that will produce proteomic profiling data, epistasis analysis results, and mechanistic findings on immune evasion pathways in MTB. These products include experimental evidence characterizing the functional intersection of ESX-1 and PDIM virulence pathways in murine infection models, immunological data clarifying the roles of interleukin-23 suppression in Th17 differentiation, and determinations of Type I interferon necessity for mutant virulence. The research advances public health understanding of tuberculosis pathogenesis mechanisms, contributing to NIAID's mission of supporting investigator-initiated biomedical research on infectious diseases and improving outcomes for the approximately one-quarter of the global population infected with MTB.