Project Grant R35GM166027

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences awarded $404,831 to the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska on August 10, 2026, to develop a single-cell transcriptomic atlas for the formation and fate of microbial communities under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859).

The research addresses fundamental gaps in understanding how bacteria in microbial communities leverage genetic regulatory systems to coordinate the initiation of cellular heterogeneity and structure formation during community maturation, and how specific subpopulations ensure community persistence under harsh environmental stressors. The work employs a prokaryotic single-cell RNA sequencing approach called BASSSH-SEQ, which enables probing of the full transcriptomic space of resolved individual cells within microbial communities—overcoming prior technical limitations that restricted studies to either broad gene detection across populations or single-cell analysis but not both.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center, the division of the recipient organization performing the work, is located in Omaha, Nebraska. The period of performance runs through April 30, 2031. This is a Project Grant, an assistance type under NIGMS that supports investigator-initiated biomedical research to advance fundamental scientific discoveries.