Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania a $785,766 Project Grant under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) effective July 17, 2026, with a completion date of June 30, 2031. The award supports the REBEL (Respiratory Bacterial Load) cohort study, which will develop novel molecular methodologies to quantify respiratory bacterial load in hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) patients during and after antibiotic treatment. The research will employ metagenomic assays and bacterial culture analysis on longitudinal respiratory and gastrointestinal tract samples to establish predictive indicators of antibiotic treatment failure and define respiratory bacterial community succession patterns over a 90-day post-treatment observation period.

The primary deliverables include identification of bacterial load features that predict HAP/VAP treatment failure, assessment of how treatment failure impacts future multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial colonization or infection risk, and characterization of gut-respiratory microbiome interactions and bacterial strain exchange mechanisms contributing to pneumonia treatment failure. These findings are intended to support precision antibiotic treatment strategies and improved clinical outcomes for hospitalized patients with HAP and VAP, while advancing understanding of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms.